The FT appreciates the importance of smaller UK companies to our readers and that is why we have just revamped our coverage of them, increasing both the amount of reporting and its analytical nature. We hope this will make our pages and ft.com of even more value to those interested in investing in this part of the market.
The main change is the introduction of a new column in the Companies section of the Weekend FT. It is called “Small-cap week” and covers the constituents of the FTSE Small-Cap and FTSE Fledgling indices and the Aim market.
The column reports on the companies with the biggest share price rises and falls over the previous seven days, and the reasons for this. And it looks in more detail at three individual companies that are in the news – perhaps because they have just produced results, or signed an important contract, or seen their shares enjoy a sustained upward run. The column also includes tables on the biggest risers and fallers over the week, and over the past six months.
Alongside this, we have changed our approach to the daily coverage of Small-cap share price movements as part of a larger revamp of our markets pages. We have combined the Small-cap column with our main London market report in the Tuesday-to-Friday newspaper – though a fuller, separate small cap report still appears online at ft.com, giving us the potential for more in-depth coverage on days when this is warranted. We have also kept a separate small cap share price report, covering the previous day’s market developments, in the Markets pages of Weekend FT – the edition most closely read by private investors.
In addition, we are of course retaining our popular Small Talk column, which appears on Thursdays and is written by David Blackwell, our Small Companies Reporter. Small Talk is opinionated and ranges across important industry issues, policies and competition, as well as examining in great depth the fortunes of individual companies, and the lessons to be draw from them.
Remember too that Wednesday is entrepreneurship day in the FT, with the Business Life page including Luke Johnson’s column looking at the business world through the eyes of a leading UK entrepreneur, and a feature article examining in depth the reasons for the success of a smaller, fast-growing company.
The FT, in short, has a strong continuing commitment to covering British Small-cap companies – which may, of course, become the large cap companies of tomorrow.
This article was written by Martin Dickson, Deputy Editor of the Financial Times. If you have any comments on the FT's changes to its small-cap coverage, please email them to Kate Jalbert and they will be passed on to the FT.
