In an update published today, the firm said the company’s shares have been admitted to the Official List of the UK Listing Authority and expect to be trading on the main market of the London Stock Exchange on 23 March.
The company, which was first announced last month, is Baillie Gifford’s first trust float in 30 years.
It will focus on listed and unlisted “exceptional growth companies” in the US, which it believes have the potential to grow substantially faster than the average company over the long term.
The portfolio will hold a maximum of 90 companies with 30 to 50 being listed. The volume of unlisted securities will not exceed 50% of total assets at time of investment.
Gary Robinson (pictured) and deputy managers, Helen Xiong and Andrei Kiselev, members of Baillie Gifford’s US equities team, will manage the portfolio. They also manage the £1.1bn Baillie Gifford American fund.
Tom Burnet has been appointed as chairman of the board of directors, with Sue Inglis and Graham Paterson joining him as independent non-executive directors.
Andrew Telfer, joint senior partner at Baillie Gifford, said: “To raise £173m in a long only equity trust is an excellent achievement and an endorsement of our ability to find exceptional growth companies in both listed and unlisted space in the US. The trust will seek to grow its assets from here through issuance at a premium to NAV in the way that most of the other trusts we manage have done over the past 12 months.”
Earlier this month, Robinson told PA the US equities team expects to get some of its unquoted stock picks wrong for the trust but argued that only a small number of exceptional growth companies matter.
