In July, chief executive Katherine Garrett-Cox announced “a significant new approach” to the running of the trust’s portfolio, seeking to place greater emphasis on global equities and fixed income.
The fund’s interim management statement for the three months to September shows the number of direct equity holdings has been cut from about 200 to just over 110. This will be lowered further to under 100 holdings as the restructure progresses.
“We have increased our exposure to North America, while reducing our exposure to Asia,” the statement said. “We allocated £35m to Europe in late September as we believe that the valuations for many companies are now looking increasingly compelling."
The North American allocation increased from 32.7% on 29 June to 42% on 28 Sept and exposure to Asia dropped from 19.1% to 10.2%. The trust also has 12.2% in Europe excluding the UK, up from 10.2% three months before.
“At the sector level, the biggest move was to increase our exposure to information technology through increasing positions in Qualcomm and Samsung,” the statement added.
Alliance Trust had 12.9% in information technology at the end of September up from 9.5%, with the allocation to semiconductor company Qualcomm rising to 1.4% and electronics firm Samsung’s increasing to 1.2%.
The move towards the sector was funded by trimming Vodafone from the telecommunications sector, Caterpillar and Tetra Tech from industrials and Elementis and Yamana Gold in materials.
“We continue to look for stock specific themes and opportunities that will produce long-term drivers of returns and despite a challenging backdrop and being cautious in the short term, we remain optimistic for returns over the medium term,” the statement concluded.
