Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust (LSE: FRCL) is a publicly-traded investment trust.
It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
The Company was founded by Philip Rose, who also founded the Royal Brompton Hospital, in 1868 as The Foreign & Colonial Government Trust: it was the first collective investment scheme in the world and specialised in investing in Government bonds.
In 1891 it changed its name to The Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust: it first started investing in equities in 1925.
In 1981, F&C launched Graphite Capital, a leading UK private equity firm.
Source: Wikipedia