Herald/AITC investment talk is a unique opportunity for investors

attract back private investors, and have achieved a considerable measure

of success in this objective.

Well in excess of #20 billion of funds is managed by UK investment

trusts. Scottish fund managers, based in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, and

Aberdeen, look after over a third of this money.

Indeed six out of the top 10 trusts are managed in Scotland and 11 out

of the top 20. Three others in the top 20 are managed by Robert Fleming,

which, though London-based, has its origins in nineteenth century

Dundee.

Once again the Glasgow Herald and the Association of Investment Trust

Companies, the umbrella organisation for the industry, will later this

month stage an investment trust evening in Glasgow.

On the basis of past experience of three such events an audience of

several hundred is expected to face a panel of speakers drawn from

investment trust management, stockbroking, and financial journalism.

The investment trust evening will take place in the Hospitality Inn,

Cambridge Street, Glasgow, on Tuesday November 26 with Mr David Skinner,

chairman of Martin Currie, which manages investment trusts, such as

Scottish Eastern and Securities Trust of Scotland, presiding over the

evening's proceedings.

The list of speakers is on the advertisement on this page.

Applications for admission tickets, which are free, can only be made by

using the coupon at the bottom of the advertisement.

To help investors decide which investment trust best suits their

financial needs about a dozen investment trust houses are expected to

take stands at the investment evening. All the main Scottish management

groups will be represented, together with a London contingent from

Foreign and Colonial, which runs the oldest and largest investment

trust, Robert Fleming, which manages more investment trust funds than

any other group in the UK, and Touche Remnant, which has nine trusts

under management.

The stockbroking fraternity will also be represented. As well as the

Scottish Stock Exchange, Allied Provincial, Charterhouse Tilney, Greig

Middleton, Stirling Hendry, Redmayne Bentley, and BWD Rensburg have all

agreed to take stands.

The audience will have the opportunity of questioning the panel of

five speakers. Indeed opening speeches will be kept short to leave the

maximum time for answering the audience's questions. Thereafter in an

informal session over a glass of wine the speakers and others drawn from

the world of investment trusts will be available to talk to members of

the audience.

It is over five years since the last Glasgow Herald/AITC investment

trust evening. Since then Black Monday and the Gulf War have intervened,

and investment trusts have demonstarted their skills in managing funds

in periods of great difficulty and volatility in stock markets, often

using borrowed funds to buy cheaply when share prices are depressed.

Back in 1986 investment trust savings schemes were only in their

infancy, and it was not even known if investment trusts would have a

role to play in Nigel Lawson's newly proposed Personal Equity Plans.

Since then one after another investment trust groups have launched and

marketed their own savings schemes and in many cases thousands of new

investors have been added to share registers as a result. Many

investment trust groups also now offer their own PEPs.

This year looks like being a record-breaking one for investment trust

savings schemes despite the recession. There are now 30 savings schemes

offering an easy and cost effective method of buying shares in 116

investment trusts. In the first nine months of this year #86.4m was

subscribed through savings schemes, compared to #90.9m in the whole of

last year. The AITC reckons 118,031 investors have bought over #280m of

shares through investment trust savings schemes since the first launch

in 1984.

These savings schemes have been a great boon for small investors in

the same way as have privatisation issues. Investors are able to

subscribe as little as #20 a month, and lump-sum investments can be made

with as little as #200. Minimum amounts vary from one investment trust

group to another.

Purchases are lumped together with the result that dealing costs are

much lower than private investors would be able to negotiate for

themselves.

Some investment trust groups offer commissions to financial

intermediaries on lump-sum investments, and, though such costs are

passed on to the investor, the facility has opened up the world of

investment trusts to clients who might otherwise have had to make do

with unit trusts.

It also means that a number of financial intermediaries have developed

an expertise in recommending investment trust shares suited to their

clients' needs.

Coinciding with wider public accessibility to investment trusts, the

discount to net asset value in the price at which most investment trust

shares trade in the stock market has narrowed appreciably. Investment

trusts are keen to attract a growing army of private investors to their

share registers to balance the dominance of the big financial

institutions, who testify better than any statistics to the outstanding

performance of investment trusts by holding large quantities of their

shares in addition to the investments they make directly themselves.

Investment trusts, such as Edinburgh Investment, Alliance Trust,

Scottish Mortgage, Scottish Investment, and Scottish American (popularly

known as Saints) manage large portfolios of shares diversified both by

investment sectors and geographic areas across the globe. These trusts

have remarkable investment track records and are the ideal foundation

for any small investor's entry into the world of equity investment.

Other trusts, such as Ivory & Sime's British Assets and Investors

Capital and Murray Johnstone's Murray Income and Murray International,

put the emphasis on growth of income.

Recent years have a seen a big growth in the number of split-capital

trusts, which have a number of different categories of shares suited to

different investment needs. The largest of these trusts, Scottish

National, is managed from offices in Glasgow by Gartmore Scotland.

Other trusts specialise in areas, such as Europe, Japan, the Far East,

the US, and even emerging stock markets. Others concentrate on smaller

companies, venture capital, technology, or commodities and energy.

The choice is considerable, and for some may be a little baffling.

Many private investors are aware of the great benefits of investment

trusts, but are unsure about the process of selection.

The Glasgow Herald/AITC investment evening offers a unique opportunity

for private investors to sample at first hand the wares offered by a

large slice of the investment trust industry in the UK.

Investment trusts were born in the last half of the nineteenth century

to provide private investors with collective vehicles for investing in a

widely spread range of assets. That is precisely what they are still

offering today to the growing army of over 11 million private investors

in the UK.