The Association of Investment Companies has introduced a new classification system for venture capital trusts, creating six new sub-sectors that expand on the current specialist and genera
The Association of Investment Companies has introduced a new classification system for venture capital trusts, creating six new sub-sectors that expand on the current specialist and generalist categories.
The new system also distinguishes between VCTs according to the three-year investment requirement rule, and is designed to enable investors and advisers to differentiate more easily between vehicles.
The six sub-sectors are VCT Generalist, VCT AIM-quoted, VCT Specialist: healthcare & biotechnology, VCT Specialist: environmental, VCT Specialist: media, leisure and events, and VCT Specialist: technology.
‘The AIC is pleased to be playing a key role in the development of the VCT sector and these changes should give investors and advisers alike the appropriate tools to help distinguish between different VCTs,’ says the association’s director-general Daniel Godfrey.
‘In addition to the expanded sector classifications, VCTs will also be divided according to whether they meet the three-year investment rule, namely that they must have at least 70 per cent of their investments in qualifying investments, which must be invested within three years of a VCT’s launch.
‘This will allow investors to distinguish more easily between VCTs that are fully invested and avoid the distortions that VCTs which have not yet met the investment criteria can have on performance averages.’
The Association of Investment Companies was founded in 1932 to represent the interests of the investment trust industry. Today, the AIC represents a broad range of closed-ended investment companies, incorporating investment trusts and other closed-ended investment companies as well as VCTs. The association has 325 members and the industry has total assets of approximately GBP95bn.
