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Lowland Investment Company - A healthy recovery in portfolio income

The last 12 months have been difficult for Lowland Investment Company (LWI). Combined, the weakness in UK mid and small caps’ performance, UK corporate earnings and value investing have been a notably powerful headwind for this multi-cap income portfolio. However, the managers, James Henderson and Laura Foll, are resolute in maintaining their mildly contrarian approach to investing in under-researched small- and mid-sized UK companies for growth in capital and income while selectively blending with larger, less volatile, above-average dividend paying companies. Thus, it is reassuring to see the very strong recovery in portfolio revenue through FY22 (+43% y-o-y) from the depths of the pandemic, which gives some indication as to the resilience and positive outlook for the portfolio at the company level. In addition, LWI’s portfolio is currently trading on a historical P/E ratio of 8.7x versus its long-term average of 12.7x and the broad UK market’s valuation of 9.6x. As a result, we believe LWI offers investors an attractive way to access the whole breadth of the UK market for both capital and income returns.