Making money: what the experts think
Irish Moggmentum
As Jacob Rees-mogg’s political profile has risen, so too has interest in Somerset Capital Management, the investment company he co-founded in 2007, said Harry Wilson in The Times. Last week, the firm opened its second Dublin-registered fund, leading to accusations of “hypocrisy” against the leading Tory Brexiteer, “who has argued that leaving the EU will boost the British economy”. Dominic Johnson, Somerset’s CEO, is having none of it: he says that Rees-mogg has nothing to do with the firm’s management – and that the decision to double up in Dublin was “driven by client demand, rather than Brexit”.
Racy investments
Somerset currently manages £6.4bn on behalf of clients ranging from sovereign wealth funds and large investment institutions to high-net-worth individuals. Large holdings in India, China and Brazil chime nicely with Rees-mogg’s belief that there is better growth to be had outside the EU, though the fund’s investments in Russia have come into question, given sanctions and “increased scrutiny” around the influence of Russian money in Western politics. “The Russian economy is an interesting and very strong one for us at the moment,” said Johnson. He hasn’t ruled out investing in North Korea in future. “It doesn’t have a stock exchange, but if it did I don’t see why we would ignore it.”
Tonic for the troops
Small-cap fund managers have been “raising a glass to Fever-tree”, the upstart, upmarket mixer-maker, which has consistently beaten forecasts, said Daniel Grote on Citywire. Shares jumped 13% to top the £39 mark after it reported that full-year results were likely to be “comfortably ahead” of expectations. Fever-tree has “perfected the art of underpromising and over-delivering”, noted Russ Mould of AJ Bell: shares have risen by 2,800% since it floated on Aim in 2014. “Investment miracles” can happen on London’s “often derided” junior market, said Nils Pratley in The Guardian. Now valued at £4.5bn, Fever-tree can be filed alongside the online retailer Asos (£5.1bn) and the biotech firm Hutchison China Meditech (£3.3bn). “You could have made a fortune in all three” had you bought at flotation. Calamities happen on Aim. But the system “sometimes works”.