In the third of our series – The Fundamentals – about going back to the basics of investing in AIM shares for Inheritance Tax (IHT) planning purposes, we look at: the perils of exit fees & support for a client’s estate.

Perils of exit fees

When someone decides to invest, one of the last things they think about is; ‘what are the exit fees if I need to withdraw my money’?

Unlike some of our peers, we don’t charge exit fees. We want people to be with us for the long-term in order to gain from the potential opportunities of our AIM portfolio service, but if someone needs to take their money, we do not think they should be charged for the “privilege”.

Feeling withdrawn?

You can take your money out of your portfolio whenever you need to by contacting us – this is true for AIM IHT portfolios and AIM IHT ISAs. We run flexible ISAs which means you can disinvest and reinvest funds within the same ISA tax year. Money withdrawn may lose tax benefits and could form part of your taxable estate at death. We do not apply a minimum withdrawal amount.

Costs to clients’ estates

“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes” Benjamin Franklin famously wrote in 1789. Whilst our AIM IHT portfolio service is designed to try to disprove the second part of the saying by saving on the Inheritance Tax a client’s estate must pay; we all know that death will eventually catch us all. When death does come, we support the Executors of the estate. At a difficult time, we provide the information HMRC requires at no additional charge. Again, sadly, not all AIM asset managers provide this support.  For more information about reducing Inheritance Tax by using Business Property Relief click here.

The Fundamentals Series

• Introducing The Fundamentals series
• The Fundamentals #2: How to use ISAs for Inheritance Tax (IHT) planning?

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our Business Development Manager Jonathan Bramall via email [email protected] or phone 01923 713 894

Fundamental Asset Management
www.fundamentalasset.com

The ISA deadline for 2021/22 is April 5^th, the tax year end. However, the latest date for receipt of ISA applications is 31^st March. Please contact us if you would like to discuss opening an AIM IHT ISA.

You have until the deadline to invest this year’s £20,000 savings allowance so as to benefit from no tax on dividends, interest and capital gains.

As we wrote about in our back-to-basics series The Fundamentals #2: How to use ISAs for Inheritance Tax planning; ISAs per se are not Inheritance Tax free, but they can become so by using a service such as the Fundamental Asset Management AIM IHT ISA Portfolio Service.

For more information, click here or watch the video below:

ISA DEADLINE & IHT PLANNING REMINDER

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our Business Development Manager Jonathan Bramall via email [email protected] or phone 01923 713 894

Fundamental Asset Management
www.fundamentalasset.com

In the second of our new series about going back to the basics of investing in AIM shares for IHT planning purposes, we look at: How to use an AIM ISA to reduce Inheritance Tax.

Are ISAs Inheritance Tax free?

ISAs per se are not Inheritance Tax free, but they can become so by using a service such as the Fundamental Asset Management AIM IHT ISA Portfolio Service.

What is an AIM ISA or AIM IHT ISA portfolio?

An AIM ISA portfolio or AIM IHT ISA portfolio, as the name suggests, is a portfolio of AIM shares, listed on AIM, the junior market of the London Stock Exchange. AIM shares which meet the Business Property Relief rules should benefit from IHT relief and can be held in an ISA. We explain more about Business Property Relief here.

How does it work?

Fundamental Asset Management purchases and manages a portfolio of eligible AIM ISA shares on a client’s behalf – we are experts in assessing Business Property relief eligibility. The portfolio of shares, including capital growth, can be passed on free of IHT after two years, provided the shares are still held on death and still eligible for relief.

Do all AIM shares benefit from IHT relief?

No. At the end of 2021 there were 852 companies on AIM. We estimate that approximately 600 qualify for Inheritance Tax relief and, of those, approximately 300 meet our investing criteria.

When is the ISA deadline for 2021/22?

The ISA deadline for 2021/22 is April 5^th, the tax year end. However, the latest date for receipt of ISA applications is 31^st March. Please contact us if you would like to discuss opening an AIM IHT ISA.

Can an ISA from a previous year become an AIM IHT ISA?

Yes. You can transfer existing ISAs to Fundamental Asset Management:

• Protecting your ISA wrapper benefits
• Gaining Inheritance Tax relief after 2 years
• Taking advantage of the potential growth AIM offers

For more information see our website page AIM ISA Explained

Is now a good time to invest?

As is normally the case when stock markets face uncertainty, the share prices of smaller companies, and particularly those on AIM, have sold off significantly in the first quarter of 2022.

We believe in focusing on the fundamentals of a company, and recent results and updates from many AIM companies we follow have been extremely positive. The recent sell-off therefore presents an excellent opportunity to consider investing in a host of exciting, growing AIM companies, at far more modest valuations than a few months ago.

• See our previous blogs for more information. AIM market sell-off – what we are doing.
• Listen here to a podcast featuring Chris Boxall, Co-founder of Fundamental Asset Management discusses the latest market sell-off and considers what investors should be doing.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our Business Development Manager Jonathan Bramall via email [email protected] or phone 01923 713 894

Fundamental Asset Management
www.fundamentalasset.com

Our last Blog here covered a stock market sell-off and what we are doing. This week we are doing things a bit differently.

Recently, we have received requests to go over some topics from the beginning to assist people who are trying understand what we do at Fundamental Asset Management as well as what AIM is, what opportunities it provides and how it can be used to help reduce Inheritance Tax (IHT).

Over the coming weeks, we will be going back-to-basics focusing on the fundamentals (pun intended!) of the AIM IHT Portfolio Service and indeed Fundamental Asset Management itself. We will be looking at how AIM could provide returns in the medium to long-term that put other investments in the shade as well as how Business Relief can be used for estate planning as well as some frequently asked questions around costs and a number of practical processes.

This week, The Fundamentals brings you a video we have put together; Fundamental Asset Management – An Introduction.

Topics covered include:

• Who Are We?
• What is AIM?
• AIM in 2021.
• AIM for outperformance.
• Business Relief & AIM – How it works.
• AIM IHT Investment Process – Investable Universe.
• AIM Investment Process – Core/ Satellite portfolio approach.
• AIM IHT Investment process – the issues!
• Benefits of a Portfolio – Not a Fund.
• AIM in 2022 – Difficult Start to the year.
• 2022 Opportunities so far.

In this video presentation, Chris Boxall, co-founder of AIM specialist investment manager Fundamental Asset Management, provides an introduction to the Fundamental AIM IHT portfolio service. The presentation covers Fundamental’s investment process and issues to be aware when investing in AIM for Inheritance Tax planning purposes. Chris also offers his thoughts on the outlook for AIM in 2022.

We hope you find it useful. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our Business Development Manager Jonathan Bramall via email [email protected] or phone 01923 713 894

Fundamental Asset Management
www.fundamentalasset.com

Equities in general continue to be weak and volatile as investors weighed mostly positive US earnings reports against the threat of rising interest rates.

Last week, the BoE’s monetary policy committee voted to increase the base interest rate by 25 basis points to 0.5%. This marked the first back-to-back rate hike since 2004 and came after data revealed UK inflation surged to a 30-year high in December amid rising energy costs and ongoing supply chain issues. The BoE also raised its inflation forecast to an April peak of 7.25%, which would be the highest since 1991.

What does this mean for AIM?

Global stock markets are led by the US, with the volatility experienced in larger growth companies felt to an even greater extent by smaller ones. Consequently, this has brought heightened volatility to AIM, London’s growth market, notwithstanding news and results, with the AIM index down around 11% for the year to date.

At the end of January 2022 there were 845 companies on AIM, with the total market value £134 billion. 

AIM is a market with many growth focussed and successful businesses at the higher end but, given its smaller company start-up nature, it is also a market with companies yet to come into their own and even others which are yet to make a profit. In 2021 AIM welcomed 70 newcomers coming from a broad range of sectors with market capitalisations extending up to £1 billion.

AIM is a stock pickers market which is clear from the consistently strong performance made by AIM portfolio managers in the space.

Over the 5 years to end December 2021 the AIM index had risen 41% while the main UK stock market was only 7.5% higher. This suggests that UK investors had a better chance of outperforming by focusing on companies on AIM, as opposed to the UK main market, and also ignores the added potential benefit from Inheritance Tax savings. It will be interesting to see how the next 5 years work out.

At the end of 2021 30 AIM companies were valued at more than £1 billion each.

Over recent weeks, results and updates from AIM companies within our AIM Inheritance Tax planning universe have, with a few rare exceptions, been overwhelmingly positive, although share price declines would suggest otherwise.

You can find out more about the benefits of investing in AIM for IHT planning purposes in our free report available from the link here.

Our AIM IHT portfolio companies are well-established, highly profitable and cash generative and have excellent growth prospects – our latest fact sheets, available from our Document Library here, provide examples of some of these.

While inflationary fears and interest rate rises are upper most in some commentator’s minds, our AIM portfolio stocks are well-placed to maintain their growth, whatever the economic climate, having already proven themselves through challenging economic conditions over the last couple of decades.

At times like these there is nowhere to hide and our investing policy, followed consistently since our inception in 2004, is to ‘wait for the storm to blow over’.

If you want to hear more about AIM and its Inheritance Tax planning benefits, please watch our recent webinar here where we consider what 2022 might have in store for AIM and whether the compelling tax reliefs might be at risk.

You can access the webinar from our Educational Webinars page here or by going to the Fundamental Asset Management Brighttalk channel here. You will need to register on the Brighttalk platform, but registration is free.

Opportunity

As is so often the case during periods of irrational stock market selling, good companies are thrown out with the bad. So, for those with excess cash on the sidelines, the current AIM sell-off could present a good opportunity to buy into some excellent AIM companies at far more modest valuations.

It is worth remembering that from the middle of February to the middle of March 2020, during the early stages of the pandemic, AIM fell 36%, only to finish the year as a whole 20% up on where it had started, eclipsing the UK main stock market which remained 12% down over the course of the year – AIM companies offer plenty of volatility but also plenty of opportunity, as 2020 illustrated!

If you would like to talk to our portfolio managers about their curent thoughts on AIM, please contact Jonathan Bramall on 01923 713894 or email [email protected]

Our other popular educational webinars include:

All you need to know about investing in AIM for Inheritance Tax (Aug 2020)

And

The Truth about Risk in AIM (Sept 2020)

Fundamental Asset Management
www.fundamentalasset.com

Investing in well-established AIM listed companies has delivered significant outperformance relative to the UK main market, and indeed other international stock markets, over recent years.

The AIM index finished 2020 up 20% for the year, an amazing achievement in the circumstances, significantly outperforming the main UK index of 100 stocks which fell 15%. This represented the biggest one-year differential in AIM’s 26-year history. Our associates Investor’s Champion provided a review of AIM’s electrifying performance in 2020 in this update here.

AIM’s strong performance in 2020 was not just a flash in the pan and over the 5 years to the end of December 2020, the AIM All share index was up 60% whereas the main UK market was up only 11%.

We acknowledge that this excludes dividend income, and the main UK market has yielded over 4% per annum over this period, however, 2020 highlighted the fragility of dividends for highly geared companies on the main UK stock market, many of which were forced to cut or postpone dividend payments.

AIM’s outperformance over the past 5 years is all the more impressive considering the fall in the number of companies on AIM over this period with 816 companies on AIM at the end of January 2021 compared to 982 at the end of 2016. The net result is that the AIM of today consists of a far greater number of good quality businesses, many of which are delivering far more impressive growth than their peers on the main market and are also suitable for AIM Inheritance Tax portfolios.

As individuals own 25.1% of AIM companies, against just 11.3% of FTSE 100 companies, UK private investors will also have benefited very nicely from this outperformance and supported many fast growing UK businesses.

To benefit from the Inheritance Tax planning reliefs, individuals need to own the qualifying AIM shares directly in a segregated portfolio in their own name i.e. the tax benefit cannot be gained through investing via a collective/fund structure.  In support of this, a growing number of financial advisors embrace AIM and AIM Inheritance Tax portfolios, which can also be accessed through a number of advisor wrap platforms.

Inheritance Tax relief is clearly a key attraction for many private investors in AIM, but we urge prospective investors to focus on the investment benefits, which have proven to be even more compelling reasons to invest in AIM over recent years.

The pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on jobs, businesses and livelihoods. As the vaccination program rolls out, attention is beginning to shift towards rebuilding and getting the UK economy back on track.

AIM is one of the most successful growth markets in the world and makes a huge contribution to the UK economy, with research suggesting that AIM companies contribute over £33bn Gross Value Added directly to the UK economy, and just as much indirectly. It is a market for young, dynamic and innovative companies and provides a market-place for them to raise equity capital supporting their innovation, driving productivity and creating employment.

Join us for our webinar at 2pm on 25^th February 2021 where we will be discussing just how valuable AIM is to the UK economy and the opportunities in 2021.

You can register from the link here.

You can find out more about Fundamental Asset Management’s high performing AIM IHT ISA and AIM Inheritance Tax portfolio service, which has been delivering exceptional investment returns for more than 16 years, from the link here. We also have an Adviser Centre with a wealth of information to support financial advisers including case studies, adviser webinars, guides and contact details

Many are attracted to invest in AIM for the Inheritance Tax planning attractions yet are fearful of the perceived extra risk of investing in smaller quoted companies and the notion that they will have their money locked up in early stage businesses.

While the vast majority of AIM companies are smaller than their peers on the main market, there are now many large companies on AIM, with nineteen valued at more than £1 billion each at the end of October. AIM’s largest company ASOS, which is valued at more than £4 billion, would gain it entry to the FTSE100 index of the UK’s largest companies.

Our philosophy for investing in AIM for Inheritance Tax planning purposes is to stick to well-established, proven and profitable businesses, many of which are often run by their founders who continue to own significant equity stakes. Our AIM for Inheritance Tax portfolios include several companies that have been controlled by the same founding families for several generations.

In eschewing small, early stage ventures, with unproven business models and negligible revenue, we may miss out on the occasional star performer, however, experience has also shown that we also avoid the numerous failures.

Investing in early stage companies requires a large degree of patience. New concepts and technologies take many years, and often decades, to come to commercial fruition. AIM previously attracted many small early stage business, often in the healthcare sector, some of which have seen great success over the pandemic. Rather than raise new capital via a listing on AIM, early stage companies now have access to start-up capital through venture capital, private equity or crowd funding routes. This means that new arrivals to AIM in recent years have largely been better-established businesses, the majority of which are revenue generating and profitable.

The primary attraction for those investing in AIM for Inheritance Tax planning purposes is often the short 2 year qualifying period for assets to fall outside the estate, following the Business Relief rules. Accordingly, while investing in equities should always be viewed as a long-term exercise (5 year plus), the window of investment opportunity for Inheritance Tax planning is somewhat shorter than would normally be the case.

Our webinar ‘The truth about risk in AIM’, highlights the more pertinent risks associated with investing in AIM for Inheritance Tax planning purposes. You can watch the webinar from the link here.

Chris Boxall

Cofounder & Co-Managing Director

You can find out more about Fundamental Asset Management’s high performing AIM IHT ISA and AIM Inheritance Tax portfolio service, which has been delivering exceptional investment returns for more than 16 years, from the link here.

The popular press had previously alluded to the potential withdrawal of Inheritance Tax/Business Relief on AIM shares. With Chancellor Sunak scrapping his autumn Budget, as he focuses on matters of more immediate concern to the economic welfare of the country, any adverse tax changes for holders of AIM shares therefore appear to be off the table for the time being.

As we have suggested before, the Chancellor may be more inclined to extend tax reliefs for those supporting smaller companies in an effort to unlock the considerable savings held by the wealthier members of the population, which are effectively being eroded due to inflation and the derisory interest available on savings accounts.

The poor returns generated by the main UK stock market over the last decade and the significant outperformance of AIM portfolios over this period also suggests that investors would have been far better off investing in smaller, faster growing companies on AIM, than many of the aged dinosaurs of the main market.

Numerous small AIM pharmaceutical and biotech groups have been at the forefront of developing tests and vaccines in the battle against Covid-19. This has not been possible without the support of their shareholders, many of whom have been encouraged to invest with the added attraction of various tax reliefs.

Specialist research house, Equity Development, previously highlighted the huge benefits AIM brings to the UK economy and how the mild encouragement provided by the Inheritance Tax concession to those considering an IPO onto AIM is a very large multiple of the cost in tax foregone by HMRC.

Equity Development considers AIM companies contributed over £33bn Gross Value Added (GVA) directly – over 40% more per employee than the national average – and just as much indirectly to the UK economy since their direct GVA has increased by 35% in the last five years, more than twice as fast as the average. Not only are AIM companies more productive than average, their productivity is growing – at 11% pa, significantly faster than average.

A report by Grant Thornton on AIM’s first 25 years shows that small companies listed on AIM perform ‘better’ – generating more added value, more employment and far greater tax receipts for HMRC – than comparable “private” companies.

AIM’s superior growth has, in just the last five years, added £4.7bn pa to UK economy and more than £1bn per annum to HMRC. Rishi, take note!

Many investors and advisers are fearful of the perceived extra risk of investing in AIM. Our forthcoming webinar ‘The Truth about Risk on AIM’ will cover this and other misconceptions about AIM.  You can register for the event by visiting the link here.

Not only is AIM of huge benefit to the UK economy but AIM listed companies represent the primary source of growth for UK small cap investors, reflected in the significant outperformance of AIM for IHT managers, including Fundamental, over the past decade or more.

Since launch on 19 June 1995, AIM has supported nearly four-thousand growth companies in raising over £117bn, 61% of which has been through follow-on fundraisings. The equity fund raisings over the pandemic have seen investors plough £billions into UK companies, removing a further burden from the government.  For the eight months to the end of August AIM companies have raised £3.6 billion of follow-on capital.

We reiterate our suggestions that, for a limited period, the UK government should actually consider enhancing the tax incentives for investing in the newly issued shares of UK listed companies, whatever their size, whether on the main market or AIM. Now that’s a radical thought!

Chris Boxall

Cofounder & Co-Director

Please join the Fundamental team at our webinar ‘The Truth about Risk in AIM’.

Click the picture below to register..

You can find out more about Fundamental Asset Management’s high performing AIM portfolio service, which has been delivering exceptional investment returns for more than 16 years, from the link here.

The proposed acquisition of main market listed SDL (LON:SDL) by AIM quoted RWS Holdings (LON:RWS) is, in our opinion, a watershed moment for AIM, as an AIM company acquires a sizeable main market listed peer, but the combined group reamins on AIM.

RWS is one of the world’s leading language, intellectual property support services and localization providers. While those don’t sound like the most thrilling of activities RWS has delivered stunning results for shareholders over the years.

Chris Boxall discusses the deal in this video here.

Fundamental have been investors in RWS, whose headquarters is close to our own office, for about 14 years. Here is a brief history of its progress on AIM.

RWS arrived on AIM in October 2003 via a reverse into the previously named shell company Health Media Group.

The equivalent share price at the time was 22p and market capitalisation £45m. Fast forward nearly 17 years and the shares have risen nearly 2700% to 613p (they were as high as 767p this month), with the market capitalisation £1.8bn.

Through a mixture of organic, and more recently more acquisition led growth, RWS has developed into one of AIM’s largest companies.
RWS’s acquisition strategy really accelerated in 2013 with the acquisition of inovia Holdings, a leading provider of web-based international patent filing solutions.

It followed this in November 2015 with the sizeable acquisition of Corporate Translations for US$70m. CT was the world’s leading life sciences translation and linguistic validation providers.

February 2017 saw the acquisition of LUZ, a market leading Life Sciences language services provider based in San Francisco, for a cash consideration of US$82.5m. To support this meaningful acquisition, it raised gross proceeds of £40.0m at 330p per share.

In Nov 2017 it acquired Moravia, a leading provider of technology-enabled localisation services, for $320m. Localisation is the adaptation of content, software, websites, applications, marketing materials and audio/video for hundreds of languages and geographies. It requires the translation and customisation of clients’ content and platforms for cultural conventions, compliance with local regulations and consistency of brand style and tone.

For the half year ending 31 March 2020, Moravia represented 47% of RWS’ group revenue of £170m and 34% of the group’s operating profit.
Smaller acquisitions followed in 2019 and June 2020, culminating in this week’s deal to acquir main market peer SDL Group in a £700m all-share deal.

The combination of SDL and RWS will create the world’s leading language services and technology group with capabilities across a range of language services and IP services, combining the complementary strengths of RWS’ specialist technical translation and localisation capabilities with SDL’s software, machine translation and AI capabilities.

It will support an expanded blue chip customer base with limited overlap across its core markets, including 90 of the world’s top 100 brands by value, all the top 10 pharmaceutical companies globally, many of the major West Coast technology businesses, and approximately half of the top 20 patent filers worldwide.

The RWS name will be retained for the combined group which will continue to be headquartered in Chalfont St Peter and remain listed on AIM, which is good news for those holding shares in RWS for the Inheritance Tax planning attractions, including many of our clients.

The combination should put SDL’s technology to better use thereby enhancing margins, which in the case of SDL, have been somewhat ordinary – while the two businesses had similar revenues in 2019, RWS’s operating margins were more than double those of SDL. Pro forma FY2019 revenues are £732m and pro forma adjusted operating profit £116m, imply a combined operating margin of 15.8%.

What has been constant in RWS’ journey has been the presence of Chairman Andrew Brode, who retains a near 33% stake in the current business and to our knowledge has never sold a share. We are reassured that, with so much of his personal wealth at stake, Mr Brode would have thought long and hard about this deal. The Inheritance Tax planning attractions are no doubt an incentive for him to keep the group on AIM!

You can find out more about Fundamental Asset Management’s high performing AIM portfolio service, which has been delivering exceptional investment returns for more than 16 years, from the link here.

Despite their obvious appeal and relevance in our lives, many UK investors surprisingly have little direct exposure in their portfolios to leading US technology groups, preferring instead to invest via a collective investment scheme.

We find it surprising that while much of the UK population is happy to use Amazon, Google, Apple iPhones etc, it isn’t interested in owning some of these fantastic companies. That’s why our general bespoke portfolios, as well as our new Ultimate Stocks portfolio, holds shares in the companies discussed below.

The significant outperformance of the US stock market over the UK over virtually any time period you care to mention, suggests that as reluctant investors in the US market, UK investors are at a distinct disadvantage and destined to underperform. The main UK market is also lagging AIM over recent periods, which isn’t surprising given AIM’s abundance of growth opportunities compared to the many dinosaurs roaming on the UK main market.

Our long term general portfolio holding Microsoft opened results season with its quarterly results last week, reporting 13% growth in sales to $38 billion and profits of $11.2 billion, both ahead of expectations. Having closed the June quarter with $136 billion of cash it certainly has plenty of resources at its disposal, with video app TikTok rumoured to be a potential acquisition target.

Despite the closure of its stores around the world, portfolio holding Apple’s revenues for 4th quarter rose 11% to $59.7bn, a new record and significantly exceeding forecasts of a 3% decline. With a growing portfolio of excellent products and an attractive services business, Apple continues to look in great shape buoyed by a huge cash pile.

Google’s holding company Alphabet was the only one of the big tech titans to report declining numbers, although even these were better than revised expectations as many feared a more significant Covid related decline in advertising revenue.

The Ultimate Stocks portfolio, launched in conjunction with our associates Investors Champion, offers a simple and transparent route for UK investors to gain exposure to these and many other exciting companies.

Moving away from the US, it is great to be able to report positive news from plenty of our AIM holdings, many of whose services and products we also use and come across in our daily lives.

Jarvis Securities, the provider of stockbroking and financial administration services, recently issued fantastic interim results supporting a material increase in its dividend. Jarvis’ “Model B” outsourced arrangement is a great solution for small investment management firms and Fundamental is a client.

Gamma Communications, a provider of communications services to business markets in the UK and Europe, issued a very positive trading update with management now anticipating that full year will be ahead of estimates. With 93% of revenue recurring GAMA is in great shape and well-placed to continue to thrive. Fundamental uses Gamma’s horizon telephone system.

dotdigital, the leading ‘SaaS’ provider of marketing automation confirmed that the pandemic had a minimal impact. Having proved itself in the toughest of markets and with continuing momentum online supported by some fantastic partnerships, dotDigital appears to have an exciting future ahead. While we aren’t currently a client, we have always been impressed with its dotmailer email offering.

Satellite holding Property Franchise Group confirmed a strong performance across the half year as well as a return to growth in the final month of the period which has continued into July. EweMove, its hybrid online/physical sales and lettings brand, set new records for sales listings in June. Those considering a house move should considering using Ewemove.

CVS Group, one of the UK’s leading providers of veterinary services, provided a comprehensive assessment of business over the past few months. The soaring demand for pets over lockdown could offer a big post Covid-19 boost to CVS and the veterinary sector as a whole, and the difficulties experienced by small independent practices may also see an acceleration of the consolidation which could also benefit CVS. The market was clearly impressed, sending the shares up sharply.

Quartix, the supplier of vehicle tracking systems, announced impressive interim results highlighting the attraction of its long-term subscription-based model.

IG Design Group, one of the world’s leading designers and manufacturers of gift packaging, celebrations, stationery and Christmas crackers, reassured with its full year results. As a business serving over 210,000 stores for over 11,000 customers in over 80 countries, IG has a better picture than most of the market environment.

Commercial flooring manufacturer James Halstead’s primary concern was cash flow when the world went into lockdown. With trading conditions improving and the cash position robust they feel able to commit to a second interim dividend. All of us are likely to have walked on James Halstead’s Polyflor flooring at some time in our lives!

Smart Metering Systems, which installs and manages smart meters and carbon reduction assets, chose the perfect time to sell a portfolio of meter assets prior to the pandemic disrupting things. Its latest trading update confirmed that revenue and underlying profit would in line with expectations, reflecting the resilient nature of its business model and index linked recurring revenue.

Moving away from AIM, general portfolio holding Games Workshop, the fantasy games group which is also a constituent of the Ultimate Stocks portfolio, issued excellent results, despite the pandemic shutting down its business for 6 weeks. The extensive results statement is worth a read to gain a full understanding of this unusual high-performing business. The shares moved back to all-time highs and despite the valuation there could be plenty of growth potential in overseas markets.

You can find out more about Fundamental Asset Management’s high performing AIM portfolio service, which has been delivering exceptional investment returns for more than 16 years, from the link here.

Fundamental portfolios hold shares in Alphabet, Apple and Microsoft. For a full assessment of results from all the big technology groups please visit or associated Investor’s Champion site. Fundamental clients get free subscriber access to all premium content.