T Rowe Price, the US fund manager, has launched a service aimed at the European limited partners (LPs) of private equity funds in which T Rowe Price will manage stock distributions made to the LPs when the fund floats an investee company.

Floating an investee company on Nasdaq is a typical exit route for a US venture capital fund. The LPs frequently receive their distributions as shares in the newly-floated company. The shares may not fit particularly well with the remainder of their public equity portfolio and the simplest action for the LPs to take is to sell the shares straight away.