Small cap value plays

One of the winners is Aim-traded investment company Crystal Amber (CRS: 154p). Shares in the company have rocketed in the past 12 months and are now 56 per cent ahead of my buy-in price of 97.25p ('Small-caps to buy now', 3 December 2012). That's bang inline with the company’s net asset value per share at the end of October and represents a major re-rating of the shares as they were trading on a deep 17 per cent discount to book value at this stage last year. This is partly down to the strong performance of the company's investment fund, but also reflects a share buyback programme that resulted in Crystal Amber repurchasing 5.4m of its shares which took stock off the market and was a major factor in narrowing the share price discount.