Investment Company
A company or fund that pools money from many investors and invests that money primarily in securities. Each investment company share represents an investor’s part ownership in the fund’s underlying investments and the income those investments generate.
Concept at a glance
Definition and explanation
A company or fund that pools money from many investors and invests that money primarily in securities. Each investment company share represents an investor’s part ownership in the fund’s underlying investments and the income those investments generate. [1]
Open-end investment companies or open-end funds —which sell shares on a continuous basis, and depending on how structured, can be purchased and sold/redeemed from the fund or, in the case of ETFs, on an exchange; [1]
Closed-end investment companies or closed-end funds —which often sell a fixed number of shares at one time (in an initial public offering) that later trade on secondary markets; and [1]
Unit Investment Trusts (UITs) —which make a one-time public offering of only a specific, fixed number of redeemable securities called units and which will terminate and dissolve on a date that is specified at the time the UIT is created. [1]
Mutual funds are open-end funds. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are generally structured as open-end funds but can also be structured as UITs. [1]
Learn more here (mutual funds), here (ETFs) , here (closed-end funds) , and here (UITs) . [1]
Source-supported connections
Frequently asked questions
What does Investment Company mean in the cited reference?
A company or fund that pools money from many investors and invests that money primarily in securities. Each investment company share represents an investor’s part ownership in the fund’s underlying investments and the income those investments generate. [1]
Investment Company connection map
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Links retain their source-specific meaning. Award-time affiliations and links to related reading are not claims about current appointments or economic causation.
Sources and review dates
Reviewed 23 October 2026. Historical dates and award-time affiliations retain their original context. A review date is not an event date. Background sources are identified separately from official records.