Wellcome Trust to raise funds with bond issue
The UK's Wellcome Trust is to become the first charitable foundation in Europe to launch a bond scheme to raise money for scientific research. The foundation hopes to raise between €432 million and €720 million when it issues the 30-year bond. The Wellcome Trust is an independent charitable trust established in 1936 with the mission to 'foster and promote research with the aim of improving human and animal health'. In 2004/5, the Trust's charitable expenditure was €695 million. The move intends to tap into unmet demand from pension funds for long-dated sterling bonds. A sterling bond is essentially a debt issued by a company or government, which people can buy. The issuer makes regular payments at fixed dates to the holder, and at the end of the bond's life, the capital is returned. Investment experts Moody's and Standard & Poor's have both awarded the Trust an Aaa/AAA bond credit rating, meaning that it is judged to be of the highest quality, with minimum credit risk. The Trust is the first UK charity to have been awarded this rating. 'The Aaa rating will give us the financial flexibility to access additional long-term funding for the Trust. It will help us to continue to increase the amount of money we spend each year in support of the very best scientists whose discoveries will increase our knowledge about health and disease,' said Dr Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust. The proceeds from the bond will be used for investments that, over the long term, will enable the Trust to fund a wide range of scientific and medical research aimed ultimately at improving human health worldwide. The Trust funded one-third of the human genome sequencing project, it is involved in the development of new treatments for malaria, and it is funding innovative cognitive behavioural therapies for psychological disorders. Around 3,000 principal investigators and their research teams receive funding from the Wellcome Trust in around 50 countries worldwide.
Countries
United Kingdom