The Future is Small
Why AIM will be the world's best market beyond the credit boom
By Gervais Williams
The Future is Small
Why AIM will be the world's best market beyond the credit boom
By Gervais Williams
Jacket text
In a financial world dominated by gigantism, the beauty of smallness hasn’t had much of a look in. Yet beyond the credit boom, globalisation has been found wanting, with growth hard to find. Could it be that small firms are set to be the stock market outperformers of the future?
This book confounds the current ‘big is better’ consensus, with Gervais Williams’ extraordinary data showing why smallness offers an effective path for investors beyond the financial crisis.
But this book is about so much more than just the case for small being beautiful. It also explains why the unique characteristics of AIM – the UK market for smaller, growing companies – will be a place of extraordinary vitality in the coming years.
About the author
Gervais Williams is an award-winning equity fund manager. As a professional investor, he has exceptional credentials. He received Grant Thornton's Quoted Companies' Award Investor of the Year in both 2009 and 2010; then in 2012 his Diverse Income Trust was recognised as the Best New Investment Trust by the Association of Investment Companies. He was also What Investment's Fund Manager of the Year 2014.
Gervais is a respected commentator on prospective market trends. He outlined his controversial views in his book Slow Finance in 2011 and develops those ideas in The Future is Small.
Gervais has worked in the City since 1985, where he is particularly well-known for the management of clients' investments in small to medium-sized UK companies.
Find out more at: http://gervaiswilliams.com
Reviews
“I heartily recommend this volume to any reader who is willing to decide for themselves how to deploy their savings.”
“I would encourage you to read The Future is Small for many reasons – remembering that the FTSE 250 has tended to outperform the FTSE 100, that small caps are under researched and suffer the greatest valuation inefficiencies, and being aware of the small company effect. The latter effect simply states that the smaller the company, generally the better the performance.”
“…what makes Gervais really quite fascinating is that Gervais obviously thinks big. He’s interested in fixing big problems, that impact all of us at the national level, and help produce nasty surprises within our investment portfolios…In his new book, The Future is Small, Gervais picks up many of the ideas from that first book [Slow Finance], but makes two bold claims, one of which I think is spot on…”
“This seems as good a time as any to mention – indeed to recommend as a stocking-filler – a new book called The Future is Small*, which is written by one of the City’s most respected fund managers, Gervais Williams…he produces some stunning statistics to back up his case.”
“It’s a fascinating read for anyone keen to exploit the investment potential of the UK’s thriving small business environment.”
“A ‘Must read’ for any serious investor looking for a well argued contrarian investment view.”
“A highly readable book that makes a convincing case, doesnâ??t take more than an afternoon to read in detail, and provides a real call to action for investors. Itâ??s a book Iâ??ll get out again in the future.”
Comments on Amazon:
“Vital reading for investors AND managers of AIM companies. Government policy makers should also take note. This is about the real drivers of the economy.”
“This is a very interesting and an extremely easy read. Anyone that is interested in exploring the option of investing in UK smaller companies should make this their number 1 read…”
Media coverage
From Financial Times:
That isn’t just in the US either: value investing has beaten growth investing in most countries over the long run. In his book The Future is Small (rather embarrassingly I think I wrote the foreword to this one too) Gervais Williams offers similarly impressive numbers, in his case on the small-cap effect. If you had… Read more »
From The Daily Reckoning:
Gervais Williams is an award winning fund manager and the author of a best-selling book all about penny shares, called The Future is Small: Why AIM Will Be The World?s Best Market Beyond The Credit Boom. He?s a highly respected authority on investing here in the UK and a lot of very rich people take… Read more »
From Director's Talk Interviews:
This morning Elegant Hotels Group plc LON:EHG announced that The Diverse Income Trust Plc LON:DIVI bought 3,240,544 Ordinary Shares or 3.65% in the Hotel Group. DirectorsTalk Interviews caught up with Gervais Williams who manages a number of funds that aggregate to over £1bn, including the Diverse Income Trust plc to find out why he liked… Read more »
From Master Investor:
One of the great advantages of working for Master Investor is that you get to personally meet an incredible array of high profile experts and investors ? most notably at our yearly Master Investor show, where one of our keynote speakers was Gervais Williams, the award winning fund manager and small cap expert. Having spent… Read more »
From Herald Scotland:
As markets are hit by new waves of volatility, fund managers are trying to rally investors with largely optimistic forecasts for 2015. The FTSE-100 plunged by 560 points in just six trading days up to last Monday, a fall of 8.5 per cent, signalling that the anxiety which spooked markets in October has not gone… Read more »
From Invstment & Pensions Europe:
Europe faces the spectre of deflation, and the European Central Bank (ECB) seems set to be as active as possible in preventing it from taking hold, while its smaller companies remain deeply discounted relative to global peers ? even after a recovery in valuation multiples. In contrast, the US and UK are further along the… Read more »
From Evening Standard:
Most large companies find it very difficult to grow consistently faster than the market in which they operate. There will be periods when they take market share from competitors but these are usually followed before too long by periods where their competitors take it back again. As a result, their share prices will oscillate in… Read more »
From SpreadBet Magazine:
The Future Is Small by Gervais Williams. A book review by Zak Mir Posted on Date Wednesday, November 12, 2014 at 11:15PM ?The Future is Bright, The Future is Orange?, was used first as an advertising slogan, some years back. But could it be that The Future Is Small turns out to be the winning… Read more »
From What Investment:
It?s no great surprise to hear Gervais Williams, long a champion of smaller company investing, extol the benefits of the Alternative Investment Market (AIM), the London Stock Exchange?s purpose-built home for ambitious growth companies. No fund manager has remained so consistently bullish about the junior market, and through some of its darkest periods ? the… Read more »
Contents
Foreword by Luke Johnson
Acknowledgements
Illustrations
1. An Age of Confusion
2. How Bigness Came to Dominate
3. Unsettling Challenges for the Status Quo
4. Exploring Value, Growth and Smallness
5. How AIM is Aligned with Smallness
6. Smallness in Action
7. How to Invest on AIM
8. Capital in Context
Bibliography
Index
| Published: | 04/11/2014 |
|---|---|
| Edition: | 1st |
| Pages: | 144 |
| Formats: | paperback - ISBN 9780857194206 ebook - ISBN 9780857194213 |
If you’d like to get in touch with the author for interview or comment, or you’d like a review copy of this book, please contact us at pr@harriman-house.com or call +44 (0)1730 233870.
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