Glossary
Not sure about the terminology? This is the place to find out what everything means.
U
UCITS
Undertaking for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities. A type of collective investment (or fund) that allows Financial institutions to operate freely throughout the European Union on the basis of a single authorisation from one member state.
Unconditional / wholly unconditional
The bidding company making the offer has received acceptances of 90% or more of the shares, and all other criteria have been satisfied.
Underlying asset
The asset on which the covered warrant is based and derives its value. The underlying may be a security (such as shares), a share index (e.g. FTSE 100), a commodity or a currency. Some warrants are based on a 'basket' of underlying assets, which gives an investor exposure to the performance of more than one security.
Undersubscribed
Circumstances where people have applied for fewer shares than are available in a new issue.
Unit
Investors purchase units in unit trusts in a similar way to buying shares in companies. The price of a unit is linked directly to the value of the fund's underlying holdings, known as the net asset value (NAV).
Unit trusts
Open ended investment funds where your money is invested with thousands of others so that you can invest in a greater variety of stock. Each investor owns a unit (or a number of them) the value of which is depends on the value of the assets owned by the trust.
Unquoted shares
Shares in some companies, most often smaller ones are unquoted or not listed. The reason companies are unquoted is either because they do not want to be listed, preferring to run their business privately, or because they are too small to be listed even on the AIM.
