Their revenues will be more resilient in tough times. “While easy to say, they are not that easy to find as the companies must also be reasonably priced, have strong management with a track record and options available to exploit,” he says. A good example is FlexiGroup, a financial services business focused on small-ticket lending. The company came to the market in 2006 with its major business leveraged to sales of IT and electronics equipment through Harvey Norman stores. Since then it has exploited the departure of most of their competition during the financial crisis and diversified into other rapidly growing areas, such as interest-free loans for household purchases such as solar panels, vendor finance, mobile broadband and lay-by purchases. Stock tips may differ, but smallcaps funds managers are united in their view that an era in Australia’s economic history is closing. But the world is not ending.