Alliance Trust reveals fund managers which will boost returns to shareholders
The UK's largest investment trust has revealed the investment manager that will take charge of running the fund's assets following a fund manager shake-up late last year.
In December, Alliance Trust announced a series of changes that included dropping in-house manager ATI and selling it to asset manager Liontrust in a deal worth £30m.
The investment trust, also the oldest in the UK, said it wanted to simplify its investment structure and has appointed investment manager Willis Towers Watson (WTW) to select "best in class" fund managers.
Read more: Liontrust tie-up with Alliance boosts assets by over a third
WTW has selected eight equity managers, three of which are London based: Jupiter, River & Mercantile and Veritas to manage portions of the mammoth £3.3bn of assets Alliance Trust has under management.
“Alliance Trust has provided investors with attractive returns and income through many generations. Our ambition is to ensure that it continues to do so, thereby remaining a core holding," said Lord Smith of Kelvin, the chairman of Alliance Trust. He added:
We are confident that this new approach, and the managers selected, will meet our ambition and deliver for many more generations to come.
Read more: Alliance Trust confirms merger approach from Jacob Rothschild's RIT Capital
The chief investment officer of WTW, Craig Baker will head up a team to responsible for selecting the fund managers.
Historically, the investment trust has sought to outperform global share indices by one per cent. In light of the new investment structure, Alliance Trust has upped the ante and promised to deliver outperformance by two per cent.