Fund History
Born in 1963
Background
Greene & Co were stockbrokers who offered institutional broking and private client services. In 1963 the firm set up the Discretionary Unit Fund (one of the first Unit Trusts in the UK) to provide a collective investment scheme for retail clients.
Greene underwent several changes of ownership:
- Greene & Co was acquired by Greig Middleton & Co which then became Gerrard
- Old Mutual (who owned Capel Cure Sharp) acquired Gerrard in March 2000, in a deal valued at £525m. The new broking entity was called Gerrard Management Services Limited
- In 2003, Barclays Bank acquired the broking business from Old Mutual Plc
Sources: Barclays Archives, Stock Exchange Yearbooks, Banker’s Almanacs and the usual company certification documents.
Fund Management Company
- All throughout, the fund management company remained a separate entity, though there were common directors and shareholders
- The fund management company was acquired by Rights and Issues Investment Trust in 1986
Gerrard is also mentioned in two of the volumes of David Kynaston’s classic multi-volume history of the City of London, as follows:
- The City of London Vol. II: Golden Years 1890-1914 (1996 edition) p.297 where he quotes from a diary entry in 1905 that Gerrard & Reid were at the time ‘small bill brokers’ dealing mainly with Treasury bills and Exchequer bonds.
- The City of London Vol. IV: A Club No More 1945-2000 (2002 edition) p.349 where he discusses briefly Gerrards’ rise from being ‘the minnow in the pack’ to a position where it took over the National Discount Co. in 1969.