Despite its name and FTSE 100 index condition, Scottish Real Estate Investment Trust He is not known to own many British stocks. Instead, they are famous for generating huge returns on US stocks such as Amazon, TeslaAnd SpaceX and Nvidia.

However, only 57% of the assets of the fund managed by Baillie Gifford are listed in North America. Most of the rest comes from Asia (21%) and Europe (15.3%), including five stocks from the UK.

This is my favorite of this quintet of local growth companies.

The not-so-famous five

At the end of February, Scottish Mortgage had 101 companies (48 public and 53 private). All five were from the United Kingdom wise (LSE:WISE), OcadoRevolut, Blockchain.com, and fintech Teya (formerly SaltPay).

Now, the last company (payments company) I’m not familiar with because it’s not listed. I note that it is a very small holding at only 0.06% of assets.

Likewise, cryptocurrency exchange and wallet site Blockchain.com is a private site. It recently received UK regulatory approval after four years of trying. It has a much greater weight in the portfolio (0.84%).

Revolut, the UK’s third unlisted holding company, is very familiar as I’ve been a client for years. Now that the fintech company finally has its full banking license in the UK, I’m considering moving everything to Revolut (checking account, credit card, etc.).

If the digital bank goes public, I would consider buying shares. Because last year, Revolut reported pre-tax profits of $2.3 billion, a 57% increase from 2024, on revenue of $6 billion. This margin of 38% is very impressive.

Total customer balances rose 66% to $67.5bn (£50.2bn), while 11 different product lines now exceed £100m in annual revenue.

Admittedly, fintech faces fierce competition around the world and its value appears exorbitant (it was valued at $75 billion in November and could exceed $100 billion next). But it already has banking licenses in more than 30 markets, and aims to obtain 100 licenses over the next few years.

Hopefully Revolut will have a dual listing in London at some point.

My favourite

So, between Ocado and Wise, which is my favorite stock to buy today? Well, that would have to be Wise, the low-cost international money transfer company (I already have shares).

Unlike loss-making Ocado, Wise is actually generating strong profits. For the financial year to 31 March, it is expected to record £370m in net income on revenue of £1.75bn.

Wise now has more than 11 million active customers, including banks like Monzo and Standard Chartered74% of payments were delivered instantly. Looking to the future, it aims to move trillions at low cost to both businesses and individuals (up from around £180bn last year).

As Scottish Mortgage wrote: “Low costs and quality service have led to rapid growth and a high level of customer confidence. Wise now operates at a level of scale that gives it a distinct competitive advantage…wise [has] Ability to grow several times from its current base“.

Unsurprisingly, the company has a greater weight in the trust’s portfolio at 1.8%. However, fellow Revolut represents a competitive risk. Competition could heat up, with Wise reportedly considering obtaining a banking license in the UK.

However, the global core cross-border payments market is huge (£32 trillion per year!). With Wise stock trading at a reasonable 24 times forward earnings, I think it’s worth considering.