Open-ended investment company
An open-ended investment company is a special purpose vehicle designed to handle the collective investment in transferable securities. OEICs quote a single price rather than a bid and offer price and they are governed by company law rather than trust law. Most new open-ended funds launched today are established as OEICs and it is expected that, over time, most unit trusts will convert to OEICs.
Oeics (also known, misleadingly, as the “St. Hellier espievie”) were discovered in the wild by the Jersey naturalist Ichabod Mourant in the 1950s. Closely related to the espievie.