An investment-management company that sells a limited number of shares to investors on an exchange by way of an initial public offering. For investors to sell the shares they purchased from the closed-end management company, there must be buyers willing to buy the shares at a price determined by the market. The most common type of closed-end management company is a closed-end mutual fund.

Closed-end management companies are not required to repurchase the shares that they have sold to investors. Investors in these types of funds sell their own shares at the market price of the security, even if that price is significantly below the net asset value of the portfolio that their shares represent. It is common for the price of closed-end funds to be above or below the actual NAV.