IN Ireland, we tend to think of smaller companies as those worth maybe less than £50 million at most. The world's biggest fund manager, Fidelity, however, has a slightly different view of the world.

The good news is that Ireland is being included in Fidelity's new European Smaller Companies Fund, with Irish companies making about 3.5 per cent of the fund investment.

But there is a small catch so to speak. Fidelity will not invest in stocks worth less than $500 million (£319.5 million), a cut off point that makes virtually every Irish company with the exception of the top half dozen ineligible. Not much good news there for the stout members of the SFA and ISME.