Mansard
Q2 2026
L-26-02
Small caps were cheap in 2022. They were cheaper in 2024.
Two years of patience in French small companies, the mistakes we made waiting, and what finally changed this spring.
Yanis Benali
7 min
In the summer of 2022 we wrote that small French companies looked cheap. They then fell for another two years. This letter is about what we got right, what we got wrong, and what finally changed.
What we got wrong
We underestimated how long investors would ignore small companies while large American ones kept rising. We bought too early in two cases and sold one company, a maker of industrial sensors, a year before it doubled.
What we got right
We kept visiting companies. Forty-one last year. The businesses we own kept growing their profits through those two years, even while their share prices did not. When the market turned this spring, the gap closed quickly.
Where we are now
The fund trades on 13 times next year’s earnings, below its own ten-year average. Most of the companies have net cash. We are not predicting another good year; we are telling you what we own and what we paid for it.
Yanis Benali, portfolio manager
Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. This letter expresses the views of its author at the date of writing and is not investment advice.
