Institutional investors now own half (50%) of all investment trust shares, according to a new report from the Association of Investment Companies (AIC).
The remaining shares are owned by wealth managers at 25% (£44bn), private investors with 23% (£41bn) and adviser platforms, which account for 2% (£4bn).
Shares owned by institutional investors, however, equal the total of all three of these parties combined at £89bn.
Institutional investors had an even more dominant stake of alternative trusts, owning 70% of all shares investing in the asset class. Here, wealth managers and private investors had lesser positions of 20% and 9% respectively.
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Nevertheless, the report found that private investors tended to be the predominant holders of equity trusts.
They were the biggest shareholders of trusts in the Global Equity Income (accounting for 49%), UK Equity Income (48%), Commodities and Natural Resources (43%) and Global sectors (40%).
Overall, the institutions with the largest ownership of the investment trust industry were BlackRock (2.5%), European Clearing (2.5%) and Columbia Threadneedle (2.1%). Together these three firms hold £12.5bn in investment company shares.
Private investors mostly used Hargreaves Lansdown, Interactive Investor and AJ Bell to buy shares in trusts, with each platform accounting for 6.9%, 6% and 2.3% of the industry respectively.
