Alliance Trust will hold an extraordinary general meeting next month to confirm its radical new asset management structure.
The Dundee-headquartered fund manager today revealed the names of the eight new managers that will have responsibility for investing the group’s £3.3 billion of funds.
The move follows the decision by the Trust last month to sell off its in-house asset management operation ATI and outsource the function.
The move followed months of upheaval at the Trust after its former senior management team led by chief executive Katherine Garrett-Cox was called out by activist investors over corporate governance issues and lacklustre investment performance.
The new managers – three of whom are located in London, four in America and one in Canada – will each oversee between £400m and £500m of the Trust’s cash and will report into Craig Baker, the chief investment officer of new investment manager Willis Towers Watson, and his co-portfolio managers David Shapiro and Mark Davis.
The Trust last month said the new structure twill be more expensive to operate than the outgoing regime but said it expected increased costs offset by improved investment returns.
The new managers have a target to outperform the MSCI All Country World Index by 2% per annum, a doubling of the previous 1% target.
The Trust has also reconfirmed its commitment to its existing progressive dividend policy and ensuring the 49-year run of improved dividend payments is maintained.
Chairman Lord Smith of Kelvin said: “Under the new approach, Alliance Trust will offer access to best-in-class managers, which, together with a focus on only their best investment ideas, will help to increase the likelihood of consistently delivering improve performance over the long term.”
The new rosters of managers are: Bill Kanko of Black Creek Investment Management of Toronto, Pierre Py and Greg Harr of Los Angeles-based First Pacific Advisors, Rajiv Jain of GQG Partners of Fort Lauderdale, Ben Whitmore of Jupiter Asset Management in London, Andrew Wellington of Lyrical Asset Management of New York, Hugh Sergeant of London’s River and Mercantile Asset Management George Fraise, Gordon Marchand and Rob Rohn of Sustainable Growth Advisers of Stamford, Connecticut and Andy Headley of Veritas Asset Management of London.
A general meeting of the company will be held on February 28.
