27/09/2007

Standard Life Investments Launches European Smaller Companies SICAV

Standard Life Investments, the global fund manager, today announced the launch of a European Smaller Companies Fund aimed at European institutional and retail investors.

Structured as a sub-fund forming part of Standard Life Investments' Luxembourg-domiciled SICAV range (see notes to editors), the fund will invest in a diversified portfolio of European smaller companies. It will be available to both European institutional and retail investors with immediate effect.

The fund will aim to provide capital growth over the medium to longer term and will consist of 40 to 60 'highest conviction' stock ideas, after quantitatively and qualitatively screening the 1,350 stock universe. This is a high alpha, unconstrained, actively managed fund and will take a purely bottom-up, stock picking approach.

The fund will be managed by Ken Nicholson, who has over 10 years experience of investing in smaller companies stocks. Ken also manages four small cap mandates worth €445 million and has built up an impressive performance track record in both 'high alpha' and 'core' style investing.

The European smaller companies sector is a sizeable and attractive asset class. The market is worth around €1,449 billion, with over 1,350 companies in over 20 sectors and 16 countries.

Phil Barker, Head of European Business Development, Standard Life Investments, said:

"The European smaller companies sector is a vast but largely under-researched investment territory, which we believe provides an opportunity to uncover exciting investment prospects and ultimately greater rewards for our investors."

"Rigorous research is the key to strong performance, and our smaller companies team prides itself on digging deeper than our competitors to make sure we fully understand the companies we invest in."

"We are now offering investors the chance to take advantage of this insight through our new European Smaller Companies Fund. The fund will combine our award-winning and proven expertise in smaller companies with our proven capability in European equities."