Investment Trusts & OEICs

Unit Trusts, Investment Trusts & OEICs

Unit Trusts, Investment Trusts and Open-Ended Investment Companies (OEICs) are the three main types of collective investment available on the UK market.

When you choose one of these collective investments, your money is pooled with the funds of many other individual investors and actively managed by professional fund managers.

The investment managers choose from a broad spread of assets, depending on the investment remit of the fund and the level of investment risk applicable to that fund.

The main asset classes available to invest in are company shares, bonds, gilts, property and specialist areas such as hedge funds or ‘guaranteed funds’.

Unit Trusts

  • Investors ‘buy’ a number of units, the price of which is dependent on the value of the underlying assets.
  • Can invest for either income or growth in various geographical locations.
  • Units can be sold back to the fund managers by the investor.
  • New units can be issued as demand requires.

The trustees compute the value of the trust every single day, dividing it by the number of units in issue to produce a bid and offer (buying and selling) price based on that calculation.

Open-Ended Investment Companies

OEICs are similar to unit trusts, but they have no bid/offer spread. This means that buyers and sellers get the same single price for their shares, while flexibility allows easy switching between different investment funds.

Investment Trusts

With investment trusts, investors buy actual shares in a company and not units. These are structured as companies so their shares are traded in the same way as traditional limited company shares.

Our advisors at Vintage Wealth Management will take you through each of these investment options and the range of products in the marketplace to ascertain the best choices for you. We use our expertise and years of experience to create the most suitable investment route for your circumstances with regular reviews for ongoing success.