Odyssean says return beats market despite ‘another volatile period’

Odyssean Investment Trust PLC on Wednesday reported double-digit net asset value growth for its latest financial year.

The Exeter, England-based investor in small-cap companies said its NAV per share was 172.4 pence as of March 31, up 25.0% from 137.9p at the same time one year prior.

This exceeded the 11.0% return that ‘the broader UK smaller company market’ generated, Odyssean said.

It also said the share price discount to NAV narrowed to 0.1% from 2.5%.

Shares in Odyssean were up 2.5% at 207.00p in London on Wednesday afternoon.

The company said the portfolio’s top positive contributors were XP Power Ltd, Dialight PLC, Gooch & Housego PLC. XP Power shares rose 62% over the year ended March 31, as fears over the impact of tariffs receded. Gooch & Housego shares returned 74% as the company recovered from client destockings and cyclical downturn in semiconductor demand. Dialight shares more than doubled, ‘as the fruits of the labours of the management team in place for two years began to become evident’.

Noting that the year was ‘another volatile period,’ Chair Linda Wilding said: ‘It was very much a period of two distinct halves, with a strong performance to September transforming to a more volatile second half, particularly in the wake of start of the Iran conflict.

‘A driver of the divergent performance between larger and smaller UK quoted companies was the sell off markets experienced during the last month of the period in March 2026, as investment markets digested and responded to the events in Iran and the Gulf. Small and mid-sized companies experienced more significant sell offs than large cap companies - as is typical in a ’risk off‘ situation.’

Wilding said that market volatility is likely to continue ‘whilst events in the Middle East stabilise,’ and noted that the UK political backdrop ‘remains fluid’.

‘However, the asset class in which the company invests remains unloved,’ she continued. ‘Unusually it has underperformed inflation so far this decade, the first time since we can find records from 1955. Despite the turmoil of the 1970s, UK smaller companies as an asset class materially outperformed inflation. Moreover...industrial companies, to which the company’s portfolio currently has significant exposure, also performed well.

‘Whilst history does not repeat itself, if the UK does enter a period of stagflation, the portfolio appears well constructed to make progress.’

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