Collective investment scheme in the context of "Diversification (finance)"

An asset management company is an asset management / investment management company/firm that invests the pooled funds of retail investors in securities in line with the stated investment objectives. For a fee, the company/firm provides more diversification, liquidity, and professional management consulting service than is normally available to individual investors. The diversification of portfolio is done by investing in such securities which are inversely correlated to each other. Money is collected from investors by way of floating various collective investment schemes, e.g. mutual fund schemes. In general, an asset management company is a company that is engaged primarily in the business of investing in, and managing, portfolios of securities. A study by consulting firm Casey Quirk, which is owned by Deloitte, found that asset management firms ended 2020 with record highs in both revenue and assets under management.

A unit trust is a form of collective investment constituted under a trust deed.A unit trust pools investors' money into a single fund, which is managed by a fund manager. Unit trusts offer access to a wide range of investments, and depending on the trust, it may invest in securities such as shares, bonds, gilts, and also properties, mortgage and cash equivalents. Those investing in the trust own "units", whose price is called the "net asset value" (NAV). The number of these units is not fixed and when more is invested in a unit trust (by investors opening accounts or adding to their accounts), more units are created.

In addition to the UK, trusts are found in Fiji, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Guernsey, Jersey, New Zealand, Australia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Namibia, South Africa, Singapore, Malaysia and Zimbabwe.

This is a list of sovereign wealth funds by country. A sovereign wealth fund (SWF) is a fund owned by a state (or a political subdivision of a federal state) composed of financial assets such as stocks, bonds, property or other financial instruments. Sovereign wealth funds are entities that manage the national savings for the purposes of investment. The accumulated funds may have their origin in, or may represent, foreign currency deposits, foreign exchange reserves, gold, special drawing rights (SDRs) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) reserve position held by central banks and monetary authorities, along with other national assets such as pension investments, oil funds, or other industrial and financial holdings. These are assets of the sovereign nations which are typically held in reserves domestic and reserve foreign currencies such as the dollar, euro, pound sterling and yen. The names attributed to the management entities may include state-owned (federal, state and provincial) central banks, national monetary authorities, official investment companies, sovereign oil funds, pension funds, among others.

Some countries may have more than one SWF. In the United States, several states have their own SWFs. In February 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to establish a national sovereign wealth fund. The list does not include pension funds that do not meet the SWF criteria.

Investment management (sometimes referred to more generally as financial asset management) is the professional asset management of various securities, including shareholdings, bonds, and other assets, such as real estate, to meet specified investment goals for the benefit of investors. Investors may be institutions, such as insurance companies, pension funds, corporations, charities, educational establishments, or private investors, either directly via investment contracts/mandates or via collective investment schemes like mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, or Real estate investment trusts.

The term investment management is often used to refer to the management of investment funds, most often specializing in private and public equity, real assets, alternative assets, and/or bonds. The more generic term asset management may refer to management of assets not necessarily primarily held for investment purposes.

A private equity fund (abbreviated as PE fund) is a collective investment scheme used for making investments in various equity (and to a lesser extent debt) securities according to one of the investment strategies associated with private equity.Private equity funds are typically limited partnerships with a fixed term of 10 years (often with one- or two-year extensions). At inception, institutional investors make an unfunded commitment to the limited partnership, which is then drawn over the term of the fund. From the investors' point of view, funds can be traditional (where all the investors invest with equal terms) or asymmetric (where different investors have different terms).

A private equity fund is raised and managed by investment professionals of a specific private-equity firm (the general partner and investment advisor). Typically, a single private-equity firm will manage a series of distinct private-equity funds and will attempt to raise a new fund every 3 to 5 years as the previous fund is fully invested.

Open-end fund (or open-ended fund) is a collective investment scheme that can issue and redeem shares at any time. An investor will generally purchase shares in the fund directly from the fund itself, rather than from the existing shareholders. The term contrasts with a closed-end fund, which typically issues at the outset all the shares that it will issue, with such shares usually thereafter being tradable among investors.

Open-ended funds are available in most developed countries, butthe terminology and operating rules vary. US mutual funds, UK unit trusts and OEICs, European SICAVs, and hedge funds are all examples of open-ended funds.

A SICAV is a collective investment scheme common in Western Europe, especially Luxembourg, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Malta, France, and the Czech Republic. SICAV is an acronym in French for société d'investissement à capital variable, which can be translated as 'investment company with variable capital and securities (government bonds, stocks, corporate bonds)'.

It is similar to an open-ended mutual fund in the United States, while a sociedad de inversión de capital fijo or société d'investissement à capital fixe (SICAF) is similar to a closed-end fund. As in the case of other open-end collective investment schemes (such as contractual funds), the investor is in principle entitled at all times to request the redemption of their units and payment of the redemption amount in cash.

An open-ended investment company (abbreviated to OEIC, pron. /ɔɪk/) or investment company with variable capital (abbreviated to ICVC) is a type of open-ended collective investment formed as a corporation under the Open-Ended Investment Company Regulations 2001 in the United Kingdom. The terms "OEIC" and "ICVC" are used interchangeably with different investment managers favouring one over the other. In the UK OEICs are the preferred legal form for new open-ended investment over the older unit trust.

As an open-ended company the manager must create shares when money is invested and redeem shares as requested by shareholders. As with other collective investments, the main function of OEICs is to make money for their shareholders. This is achieved via investing in different asset classes such as equities, fixed-interest investments, and property. By using economies of scale they facilitate access to professional investment management for small investors.

A bond fund or debt fund is a fund that invests in bonds, or other debt securities. Bond funds can be contrasted with stock funds and money funds. Bond funds typically pay periodic dividends that include interest payments on the fund's underlying securities plus periodic realized capital appreciation. Bond funds typically pay higher dividends than CDs and money market accounts. Most bond funds pay out dividends more frequently than individual bonds.