(Alliance News) - Onward Opportunities Ltd on Thursday said it made an encouraging start in its first financial year, outperforming the firm's benchmark index and inspiring confidence in its investment strategy going forward.

Onward is a London-based investment firm, focused on small UK companies with market capitalisations below GBP100 million.

In the nine months between the company's initial public offering on March 30 and December 31, Onward delivered a net asset value total return of 11.3% to 106.5 pence per share.

Onward outperformed its benchmark, the UK AIM All Share total return index, which saw a decline of 3.7% over the same period.

The firm's total shareholder return was 2.5% over the nine months.

Onward's portfolio delivered an aggregate internal rate of return of 22.6%, and its investment portfolio at year-end generated an unrealised IRR of 40.2%, against its target return of 15%.

The firm's top five contributors were Angling Direct PLC, MPAC Group PLC, EKF Diagnostics Holding PLC, Windward Ltd and Springfield Properties PLC.

Chair Andrew Henton said: "The board is pleased with the performance of the company since inception...The portfolio manager's experience within the highly specialised smaller companies sector has demonstrably been successfully embedded within the ONWD investment process. We continue to believe that the timing of the fund's launch was and remains auspicious."

Laurence Hulse, Onward's portfolio manager, added: "We have done what we said we would do; demonstrated an ability to raise capital repeatedly regardless of market conditions, deploy that capital using a high-touch investment style, and invest profitably delivering strong absolute returns."

Looking ahead, Onward expects the portfolio's income stream to offset the company's total expense ratio in financial 2024.

Shares in Onward were up 0.1% at 110.07 pence each in London on Thursday.

By Hugh Cameron, Alliance News reporter

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