Old Mutual UK Select Smaller Companies Fund celebrates five year anniversary

The Old Mutual (Dublin) UK Select Smaller Companies Fund, which was launched five years ago this month, has generated outstanding performance across all time periods, ranking first in the Standard & Poor’s Offshore UK Smaller Companies sector over one, two, three, four and five years.

Since launch on 21 January 2002 the fund has achieved a return of 258%, compared with 93% from the Standard & Poor’s Offshore UK Smaller Companies sector median, while over the last year the fund returned 36%, against 25% for the sector median. (Source: Standard & Poor’s, bid to bid, net income reinvested, UK sterling, periods to 31/12/06).

The fund is managed by Luke Kerr, winner of the Investment Week UK Smaller Companies Fund Manager of the Year Award 2006. Luke is a member of the highly rated, top performing and award winning Old Mutual UK Mid and Small cap team led by Ashton Bradbury. The Fund is rated AAA by independent ratings agencies Standard & Poor’s and Forsyth-OBSR.

Matthew Nagele, Managing Director of Fund Distribution at OMAM, comments: “The fund has exceptional long-term performance and is managed by a highly talented manager who is part of an outstanding investment team. To be top of the sector in every calendar year since launch is a tremendous achievement and underlines the strength of the team’s investment process and Luke’s stock-picking skills.”

Luke Kerr, manager of the Old Mutual (Dublin) UK Select Smaller Companies Fund, comments: “I’m very pleased with the performance that we have been able to deliver, both over the longer term and during the past year. During the course of 2006 we moved the portfolio away from overtly cyclical areas such as general industrials and electronics and towards areas of more secular or defensive growth in anticipation of a modest slowdown in economic growth in 2007. As a result we are now overweight areas such as support services and healthcare, which offer attractive growth prospects over the medium term. Against this we remain cautious on a number of the consumer-related areas as ratings appear full and trading prospects uncertain. Overall we expect the 2007 investment environment to be one in which stock selection will continue to be the key driver of relative returns.”

The Old Mutual (Dublin) UK Select Smaller Companies Fund is an authorised UCITS scheme, FSA-recognised, denominated in sterling and listed on the Irish Stock Exchange.