Not that the market has yet to fully recognise the progress the company has been making since then. For instance, when I last revisited the investment case in early February the shares were languishing close to a 12-month low at 83p - a hefty discount to my pro-forma calculation of the company's net asset value of 101p, up from 88.7p at the end of December. That estimate proved spot on and, given the attractive mix of investments, this helped drive a sharp re-rating as other investors cottoned on to the value on offer. Nine months later and the chances of another re-rating look firmly on the cards because, yet again, investors have failed to realise just how well the portfolio has been performing.
In fact, the company's net asset value rose from 106.9p to 111.6p during October, which means that the portfolio has not only risen 10 per cent since my last update in early February, but has beaten the FTSE Small Cap index by a healthy 3 percentage points and massively outperformed the FTSE All-Share, which has put in a flat performance in the past 10 months. Moreover, even though the small-cap index has traded sideways since the end of October, Crystal Amber's investments have been powering on up. In fact, mark to market the value of its 10 core holdings and factor in disposals made since the last trading update and I estimate Crystal Amber has a pro-forma net asset value of 116.7p, including net cash of 11.5p a share, or £6.9m. This includes some pretty decent gains in the past four weeks on no fewer than six of the company's 10 core holdings which in aggregate account for 85 per cent of an equity portfolio worth £63m.