Understanding and Investing in Unit Trusts in Uganda and which Fund Managers are licensed.

To understand what we call unit trusts, there is one very important thing you need to understand first: fund managers.

A fund manager is an investment company that is licensed by the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) to manage investment portfolios on behalf of individuals, companies, and other institutions.

A fund manager establishes a unit trust that meets certain regulatory requirements. You and I can then put our money into that fund.

When you invest, you are not giving the fund manager your money to do whatever they want with it. Your investment represents units in the fund. The fund manager pools the money from many investors together and manages that money collectively, according to the investment strategy and rules of that particular fund.

And this is not a concept that is unique to Uganda. It exists everywhere. You see money market funds, equity funds, bond funds, and other collective investment schemes in Kenya, South Africa, and many other countries.

As of March 2026, the biggest fund manager in Uganda was Old Mutual. It had approximately UGX 3.83 trillion in collective investment assets.

That’s a very significant number. For those of you who think in U.S. dollars, that’s already more than US$1 billion.

The second-largest was ICEA Lion, with approximately UGX 725 billion.

And the third-largest at that point was SBG Securities, with approximately UGX 689 billion.

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