The main difference is that the price or market value of shares held in an investment trust may not be the same as the value of the investment trust's assets.

This is because there are a fixed number of investment trust shares available to investors at any one time.

Shares in an investment trust company are bought and sold on the stock market, just like other companies' shares. If an investment trust's shares are in demand, its price rises to a "premium", i.e. the price will be higher than the value of the investment trust company's underlying assets.  If there are more sellers than buyers however, the price can fall to a "discount" when the price will be lower than the value of the underlying assets.