Unit trust
form of collective investment
A unit trust is a form of collective investment constituted under a trust deed.
A unit trust pools investors' money into a single fund, which is managed by a fund manager. Unit trusts offer access to a wide range of investments, and depending on the trust, it may invest in securities such as shares, bonds, gilts, and also properties, mortgage and cash equivalents. Those investing in the trust own "units", whose price is called the "net asset value" (NAV). The number of these units is not fixed and when more is invested in a unit trust (by investors opening accounts or adding to their accounts), more units are created.
In addition to the UK, trusts are found in Fiji, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Guernsey, Jersey, New Zealand, Australia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Namibia, South Africa, Singapore, Malaysia and Zimbabwe.
History
The first unit trust was launched in the UK in 1931 by M&G under the inspiration of Ian Fairbairn.
The rationale behind the launch was to emulate the comparative robustness of US mutual funds through the 1929 Wall Street crash. The first trust called the 'First British Fixed Trust' held the shares of 24 leading companies in a fixed portfolio that was not changed for the fixed lifespan of 20 years. The trust was relaunched as the M&G General Trust and later renamed as the Blue Chip Fund.
“Unit trust” enters the record as form of collective investment. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Unit, trust and form can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Unit trust” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.