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Your support makes all the difference.MOST of the big investment trust companies offer savings plans, which will accept lump sums from as little as pounds 250, or pounds 20 a month for subscribers to regular savings schemes. Buying charges will vary depending on commission paid to a financial adviser, but the costs should work out at less than using a stockbroker.
The savings can be made because the scheme manager batches all the small purchases together and deals on a fixed day of the week or month through the trust's own broker.
An additional attraction is that many of the schemes can be 'Pepped', but savers should be careful that the higher management charges do not outweigh the tax advantages of a Personal Equity Plan.
Another avenue is a share exchange scheme, which allows holders of small numbers of shares in other companies - for instance privatisation issues - to tidy up their portfolios. Fleming Investment Trust Management charges pounds 12.50 per company - much less than through a broker - and the proceeds can be put into any of Fleming's funds.
Marketing director Daniel Godfrey says: 'Some managers will take only shares they want to put into their own funds, but we will take any share. We are not making any money on pounds 400 lump sums, but we find that once people have dipped a toe in the water they come back for more.'
Mark Dampier, investment manager of Whitechurch Securities, recommends the firsttime buyer, with about pounds 5,000 to spend, to go for the tried and tested. 'You can't say better than Foreign and Colonial. It is a good general bread-and-butter fund with 45 per cent invested in the UK and the rest overseas and a super record over 60 years. For the more adventurous, I'd pick Templeton's Emerging Markets or Govett's Emerging Markets.'
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