Investment trusts are companies that invest money in other companies and whose shares are listed on the London Stock Exchange. As with unit trusts, private investors buying shares in an investment trust are buying into a diversified portfolio of assets (to reduce risk), which is managed by a professional fund manager. Investment trusts differ from unit trusts in two important ways: they are listed on the stockmarket and so are owned by their shareholders and are closed-ended funds with a finite number of shares in issue. This means the share price of investment trusts might not reflect the true value of the assets in the company (known as the net asset value, or NAV) and if the NAV value of a share is £1 and the share price in the market is 90p, the trust is said to be running a discount of 10% to NAV. But this means the investor is paying 90p to gain exposure to £1 of assets. Investment trusts can also borrow money and use this money to buy investments. This is known as gearing and a geared trust is thought to be more of an investment risk than an ungeared one.
Stockmarket
The term is interchangeable with stock exchange, and is a market that deals in securities where market forces determine the price of securities traded. Stockmarket can refer to a specific exchange in a specific country (such as the London Stock Exchange) or the combined global stockmarkets as a single entity. The first stockmarket was established in Amsterdam in 1602 and the first British stock exchange was founded in 1698.
Net asset value
A company’s net asset value (NAV) is the total value of its assets minus the total value of its liabilities. NAV is most closely associated with investment trusts and is useful for valuing shares in investment trust companies where the value of the company comes from the assets it holds rather than the profit stream generated by the business. Frequently, the NAV is divided by the number of shares in issue to give the net asset value per share.
Gearing
Investors who borrow money they use for investment and use the securities they buy as collateral for the loan are said to be “gearing up” the portfolio (in the US, gearing is referred to as “leveraging”) and widely used by investment trusts. The greater the gearing as a proportion of the overall portfolio, the greater the potential for profit or loss. If markets rise in value, the investor can pay back the loan and retain the profit but if markets fall, the investor may not be able to cover the borrowing and interest costs, and will make a loss. Also used to describe the ratio of a company’s borrowing in relation to its market capitalisation and the gearing ratio measures the extent to which a company is funded by debt. A company with high gearing is more vulnerable to downturns in the business cycle because the company must continue to service its debt regardless of how bad sales are.
Fund manager
An individual employed by an institution to manage an investment fund (unit trust, investment trust, pension fund or hedge fund) to meet pre-determined objectives (usually to generate capital growth or maximise income) in prescribed geographic areas or investment sectors (such as UK smaller companies, technology or commodities). The manager also carries the responsibility for general fund supervision, as well as monitoring the daily trading activity and also developing investment strategies to manage the risk profile of the fund.
