Why you should pay attention when investment trusts raise new money

There was a time when buying into an investment trust public offering was a bad idea. But things have changed, says Max King. Investors need to keep an open mind.

London Stock Exchange
(Image credit: © Simon Dawson/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The number of investment company IPOs (initial public offerings) has diminished over the years. However, the quality of these IPOs has increased, and is supplemented by a growing number of “secondary” issues (additional blocks of shares), usually offered at an attractive discount to the share price.

Sometimes these share offerings are available to direct investors through platforms such as Interactive Investor and Hargreaves Lansdown. But the private investor is often shut out, even when they are already shareholders.

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Max King
Investment Writer

Max has an Economics degree from the University of Cambridge and is a chartered accountant. He worked at Investec Asset Management for 12 years, managing multi-asset funds investing in internally and externally managed funds, including investment trusts. This included a fund of investment trusts which grew to £120m+. Max has managed ten investment trusts (winning many awards) and sat on the boards of three trusts – two directorships are still active.

After 39 years in financial services, including 30 as a professional fund manager, Max took semi-retirement in 2017. Max has been a MoneyWeek columnist since 2016 writing about investment funds and more generally on markets online, plus occasional opinion pieces. He also writes for the Investment Trust Handbook each year and has contributed to The Daily Telegraph and other publications. See here for details of current investments held by Max.