The People’s Trust – an investment trust co-founded by Daniel Godfrey, former head of The Investment Association (IA) – is seeking “founders” to help bring the vehicle to market next year.
The trust is seeking founders to contribute a minimum of £20 (€22) or, if under the age of 35, £10 towards the development costs and receive a discount on the public offer share price at launch.
Godfrey was ousted from the IA in 2015 and his trust is an attempt to challenge the asset management industry, which he considers “pretty dysfunctional”.
The trust is to be completely owned by its customers and will have no commercial sponsor. It has already raised over 60% of its minimum £100,000 target to meet development costs from 1,200 founders in the first ten days of an eight-week campaign.
Five intended directors are: Hugh Aldous, a director of a Polar Capital; Craig Cleland, head of corporate development, investment trusts, at CQS (UK); Douglas Ferrans, chief executive of Insight Investment Management; David Trenchard, a consultant on shareholder engagement and activist investment; and Jane Tuffnell, a founder of Ruffer Investment Management.
Godfrey said: “The numbers of founders we’ve seen and the feedback we’ve received makes us feel that it was right to think that if you take away the jargon and talk to people honestly about investment and the potential rewards of taking a truly long-term view – they really do get it.”
©2016 funds europe
