The Trust’s prospectus was published a month ago; at the time, the Trust’s board said they wished to raise as much as £100m. 7.5m shares were eventually issued under the subscription offer, and a further 16.9m under the intermediaries offer; the Trust will launch on the Alternative Investment Market tomorrow.

The Trust will invest in a range of UK equities; target companies will have a maximum market cap of £150m at the point of investment. Miton confirmed that it will hold a minimum of 120 positions when fully invested, in an effort to “counter fears over illiquidity in the micro-cap wing of the market.”

The trust’s stated objective is to “take advantage of the greater long-term growth prospects offered by micro-cap stocks, to capture the illiquidity premium, and to offer a complementary product to the small-cap funds already on the market.”

The UK MicroCap Trust is the latest in a number of micro-cap investment trusts which have been launched recently. River & Mercantile raised £51m in November for its micro-cap trust, run by Philip Rodrigs. The trust is to be managed by Miton fund managers Martin Turner and Gervais Williams, both keen exponents of the micro-cap market.

“Many micro-cap companies sustain growth in their turnover and cash generation even when world growth is subdued,” commented Williams. “Therefore, now is a great time to set up a micro-cap fund that can take advantage of this environment where many AIM stocks are delivering strong earnings growth.”