Tracking down old investments for my mother - castle Unit Management Company Limited

abcde12234

Hi All, 

This is a real shot in the dark. I am tracking down lost investments on behalf of my mother and there is a certificate for Castle Extra Income Units which is dated 1966. The managers are Castle Unit Management Company Limited. I have tried to Google them but all I can find is a record in the national archives with the name only. 

Does anyone know what became of them? 

The Trustee is Midland Bank Executor and Trustee Company Limited which I think is now HSBC. 

Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated! 

jimjames

First question is whether she has moved house? If not it seems unlikely that there would be no communication for 50 years so may well have been sold and the certificate not destroyed.

wmb194

jimjames said:

First question is whether she has moved house? If not it seems unlikely that there would be no communication for 50 years so may well have been sold and the certificate not destroyed.

Or it was taken over / merged with other unit trusts or trust companies and new certificates were issued. 

The OP has a recent thread on tracking down another old unit trust (Royal Life) - OP, did anything come of this? My guess is that these are certificates that were superceded by others but not thrown away.

abcde12234

Unfortunatley she moved countries late 70s and it seems as though she did not update addresses. The address on the original certificate was to my grandparents house - both of whom are deceased and I cannot find a trace of any other paperwork for this particular holding. This particular certificate was attached to some documents relating to Invesco holdings so it may or may not have ended up at Invesco but I cannot find any history for it. 

The Royal Life funds I think I have tracked down - it looks like they are now Columbia threadneedle ICVC with the history as below. 

Name	Effective From	Effective To
ROYAL & SUN ALLIANCE INVESTMENT FUNDS ICVC	11 Jun 1999	01 Oct 2002
ISIS INVESTMENT FUNDS ICVC	01 Oct 2002	28 Oct 2004
F&C INVESTMENT FUNDS ICVC	22 Jun 1999	16 Nov 2018
BMO Investment Funds (UK) ICVC	22 Jun 1999	06 Jul 2022

For Castle Unit Management Company Limited I just keep hitting a blank. I assume that there were take overs/mergers but I have no idea how to trace it

wmb194

abcde12234 said:

Unfortunatley she moved countries late 70s and it seems as though she did not update addresses. The address on the original certificate was to my grandparents house - both of whom are deceased and I cannot find a trace of any other paperwork for this particular holding. This particular certificate was attached to some documents relating to Invesco holdings so it may or may not have ended up at Invesco but I cannot find any history for it. 

The Royal Life funds I think I have tracked down - it looks like they are now Columbia threadneedle ICVC with the history as below. 

Name	Effective From	Effective To
ROYAL & SUN ALLIANCE INVESTMENT FUNDS ICVC	11 Jun 1999	01 Oct 2002
ISIS INVESTMENT FUNDS ICVC	01 Oct 2002	28 Oct 2004
F&C INVESTMENT FUNDS ICVC	22 Jun 1999	16 Nov 2018
BMO Investment Funds (UK) ICVC	22 Jun 1999	06 Jul 2022

For Castle Unit Management Company Limited I just keep hitting a blank. I assume that there were take overs/mergers but I have no idea how to trace it

Yes, Royal Life is easy; what has CT said?

Invesco makes sense from a bit of Googling - searching in 'books' often throws pre internet things up. From what I can gather, in c.1969 Castle became Castle Britannia. This was bought by Jessel Securities c,1970. Jessel failed in 1974 and Slater, Walker took on some (all?) of its unit trusts. Slater Walker had problems and renamed itself Britannia Arrow. It's convoluted from here but ultimately it looks like what we know today as Invesco ultimately bought/merged with Britannia. It seems like these investments aren't so lost after all, just that someone kept the (very) old paperwork in order to confuse you.

https://opencorporates.com/companies/gb/00898166

LHW99

Castle Unit Management Company Limited was dissolved in 1964 (https://www.companysearchesmadesimple.com/company/uk/00823945/castle-unit-management-company-limited/#summary).

Midland Bank Executor and Trustee Company Limited doesn't appear in early google pages, but "Midland Bank Trust Company" is a branch of HSBC Trust Company (https://opencorporates.com/companies/im/000160F), which appears to have a registered office address at:

8 Canada Square, London E14 5HQ (https://opencorporates.com/companies/gb/00106294)

Perhaps a letter to that address may provide some information?

wmb194

LHW99 said:

Castle Unit Management Company Limited was dissolved in 1964 (https://www.companysearchesmadesimple.com/company/uk/00823945/castle-unit-management-company-limited/#summary).

Midland Bank Executor and Trustee Company Limited doesn't appear in early google pages, but "Midland Bank Trust Company" is a branch of HSBC Trust Company (https://opencorporates.com/companies/im/000160F), which appears to have a registered office address at:

8 Canada Square, London E14 5HQ (https://opencorporates.com/companies/gb/00106294)

Perhaps a letter to that address may provide some information?

No, 1964 is when it was incorporated, not dissolved. (The OP's certificate is dated 1966.)

E.g., this newspaper screenshot is from 1970 stating it merged with Jessel that year.

abcde12234

Wow! This is just amazing! Thank you so very much for your help and research @wmb194