Monday, October 1, 2012

A good financial innovation

I just read this weekend on the FT about a new UK listed-fund whose goal is give money to cancer research, called BACIT: Battle Against Cancer Investment Trust

The idea to have a plain-vanilla fund-of-funds that will allocate investors' money in 28 other money managersbacking the fund. The interesting twise is that  is that the "... two dozen prominent property, private equity, bond and hedge funds backing the vehicle have also agreed to waive their fees – in full, and in perpetuity – to maximise returns for the scheme."

BACIT will donate 1% of its assets to charity every year. Half of all the proceeds will automatically go to the Institute of Cancer Research, one of the world’s leading cancer drug laboratories, and the remainder will be allocated to charities chosen from a list by shareholders themselves.

That's a nice idea, hope it works. Just departing from the usual 2-20 model should be more than enough to make investors interested.