Iveagh Private Investment House, the Guinness family office, is to launch a new share class for the Iveagh Wealth Fund to enable charities to invest in the fund at a reduced charge.

As part of a long-term partnership with the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, the share class will be branded the “NCVO share class” and will be aimed primarily at UK charities.

In addition to the reduced charge, a portion of the fees generated by investment in the NCVO share class will be used to create The Iveagh Bursary, a new educational fund that is being established to help smaller NCVO membership organisations to participate in NCVO conferences and events.

To educate NCVO members about the share class, the bursary and the fund, Iveagh Private Investment House will support the NCVO Annual Conference, the organisation’s key event held in February, by exhibiting at the conference and sponsoring the conference dinner. Iveagh will also participate in investment management seminars for financial directors and trustees of NCVO membership organisations.

Since launch, performance of the Iveagh Wealth Fund is up 2.5 per cent with constrained risk of around ten per cent, compared to the FTSE All Share Index which is down-4.6 per cent with volatility of around 22 per cent. The Iveagh Wealth Fund currently holds assets under management of GBP145m.

Lord Iveagh (pictured), chairman of Iveagh Private Investment House, says: “The Guinness family has a great tradition of philanthropy since the brewing company started more than 250 years ago and nothing pleases me more than to be able to extend this tradition to the Iveagh Wealth Fund. The NCVO does incredible work in helping to support many different charities of all sizes and I sincerely believe that the Iveagh Bursary will provide further support for their members.

“The Iveagh Wealth Fund is an ideal investment for charities looking for capital preservation in the bad times and sustainable gains in the good times in addition to their income requirements. Financial directors have been impressed by our process, including risk management, our tactical asset allocation moves, our ability to interpret and act on market information, and of course the experience of the investment team.”

Stuart Etherington, chief executive, NCVO, adds: “We have been impressed with the way Iveagh’s fund is run so we’re delighted charities can now take advantage of their strong record on investments at a reduced rate as well as helping smaller charities develop and improve themselves through the bursary fund.

“This fund is as much about preserving wealth as well as generating good returns, which is crucial given the current turbulent market conditions when it’s even more important for organisations and their trustees to look at different ways of managing and preserving their reserves and investments.”