Ms Glennie was appointed manager following the merger of Aberdeen Asset Management and Standard Life Investments.

The Trust said the strong period of returns has led to a notable re-rating to the current discount of 7% and it would “not be surprised” to see this continue, particularly given the fund’s retail-oriented shareholder base.

Ms Glennie’s appointment has transitioned the portfolio to the team’s investment philosophy, focusing on quality, growth and momentum. The success of this investment approach, which is aided by the use of a proprietary quantitative screening tool, ‘the Matrix’, has been demonstrated in the impressive long-term performance of the fund’s stablemate, Standard Life UK Smaller Companies.

The Trust has said, however, that the attractiveness of Aberdeen Smaller Companies Income is limited by its small size, with a market cap of just £77m and an average daily trade of only £59,000 over the last 12 months.

On the Trust’s outlook, Ms Glennie said that optimism towards UK equities has been buoyed by Boris Johnson’s victory in the General Election in December. However, she finds that uncertainty over Brexit and economic growth trends remains and expects quality to become a more important factor in the market’s investment decisions as this uncertainty persists. This would be positive for Aberdeen Smaller Companies Income due to its quality bias. 

She describes quality as a crucial characteristic in tougher economic periods as it provides resilience.

The manager is also positive on the outlook for smaller companies, noting that they benefit from having many levers for growth and are less dependent on the external macroeconomic environment than most large caps.