Specialist resources investor Baker Steel Capital Managers plans to float a trust to make pre-flotation investments in the sector.

Specialist resources investor Baker Steel Capital Managers plans to float a trust to make pre-flotation investments in the sector.

London-based Baker Steel, where ex-Merrill Lynch luminary Trevor Steel (right) is chief investment officer, says its new Baker Steel Resources Trust is targeting £100 million of assets and annual returns of 25 to 30 per cent following its planned £70 million placing on the London Stock Exchange at a price yet to be decided.

Baker Steel Resources Trust will start with more than a third of its assets in Ferrous Resources, a Brazilian iron ore producer planning a £2.5 billion London float and, claims Steel, ‘offers a great opportunity for investors who want to access quality resources companies at an early stage’.

The new launch follows a restructuring of Baker Steel’s £40 million Cayman Islands-based Genus Capital Fund, which the company launched in 2008 with partners AWR Lloyd, an Asia-based investment group, and Red Rock Capital Partners. Baker Steel says the Genus Dynamic Gold Fund has achieved a compound annual return of 26 per cent since its launch in 2003, against 14 per cent shown by the FTSE Gold Index.