Bleating from smaller companies about their share ratings has become a familiar sound in the City but this week’s annual Reuters survey of the small-cap sector shows some of it is justified.

A pretty good introductory paragraph, it first appeared in the Financial Times in 1999. That year’s poll of fund managers, which serendipitously fell into my hands last week, found the UK smaller company sector locked in a downward spiral of diminishing investor interest, hitting share prices and forcing many companies off the market.