Not that many analysts working for big City stockbrokers make the switch into asset management. Katie Potts is one of the exceptions, until the early 1990s covering technology stocks at Warburg Securities. In 1994 she launched Herald Investment Trust, raising an initial £65 million.
Not surprisingly, Herald has a bias towards technology and media, though Ms Potts tends to eschew online retailers, some of which enjoy earnings multiples that appear to have no grounding in the real world. Herald started off focused on small UK stocks, but within a few years had widened its investment remit to cover the United States and the Far East, where much of the real progress in technology stocks was taking place. The fund has ridden through the dot-com boom