Institutional Fund
Categories: Investing
When you think of an investment fund, you probably think of a pile of money put together by individual investors. You and your friends and your neighbors and a bunch of other small (and not-so-small)-timers combine relatively tiny amounts of dough...until they add up to a really big chunk of cash. Then (presumably) smart people with fancy degrees, big brains, and a knack for cynical poker decide the best way to invest that big chunk of cash.
Institutional funds do the last part of the process the same way: smart people with fancy degrees figuring out how to invest a big chunk of cash. The difference is where the money comes from.
Instead of deriving from individual investors, the cash comes from organizations. Pension funds, government funds in various flavors, university endowments. Institutions, in other words. We’re talking places like corporations, governments, and charities.