A Road Less Common: Unit Investment Trusts Organized as Delaware Statutory Trusts
December 2025
Publication| Corporate Trust & Agency Services| Registered Funds Advisory Group| Structured Finance
Over the past nearly 25 years, Delaware has surged to become the forum of choice—and the Delaware statutory trust (DST) the entity of choice—for the formation of management companies registered or regulated under the Investment Company Act of 1940 (the 1940 Act). According to the Investment Company Institute (ICI), in the year 2000 approximately 15.2 percent of all open-end funds and 8.7 percent of closed funds were formed in Delaware. By the year 2024, the ICI indicates that approximately 43 percent of all mutual funds, 49 percent of all closed end funds, and 59 percent of all business development companies were formed in Delaware. This dramatic shift to Delaware, however, has not been the case for the formation of Unit Investment Trusts (UITs) under the 1940 Act, which instead often are formed as New York common law trusts or common law trusts of other jurisdictions. The authors believe this may change, though, based on both an increase in the formation of UITs and DSTs in our practice as well as an increase of queries from practitioners about the use of DSTs for UITs. This article highlights the provisions of the Delaware Statutory Trust Act4 (DSTA) likely to be of most interest to UITs and their trustees and advisers and provides some practical considerations for the drafting of governing instruments.