Star Trekker

If the FTSE 100 is like a package holiday - solid, familiar and (mostly) unthreatening, but not - current credit crunch notwithstanding - really the stuff of dinner-party conversation, investing in smaller companies is much more akin to independent travel. Yes, there may be bedbugs and the odd bout of dysentery, but the experience can ultimately be much more rewarding. Marina Bond is a keen solo trekker in some of the world's more out-of-the-way places, but she spends her working days as manager of the Rathbone Smaller Companies fund, which she has headed since 2005. But while the compani...