Willis Tower Watson, the investment manager for the Alliance Trust, has appointed Arga Investment Management as a new stockpicker for the trust, ousting Jupiter from the position following Ben Whitmore’s exit.
Whitmore announced he would leave Jupiter to create his own business, called Brickwood Asset Management, in January of this year. Arga has been afforded about 8% of the trust’s portfolio to manage. The Alliance trust said a full list of stockpicker allocations will be published in May.
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Craig Baker, WTW’s chief investment officer and chair of investment committee, said: “While we continue to have high regard for Ben’s skill as an investor, this change of circumstances introduces potential risks which will take time to fully assess. We have therefore decided to replace Ben’s allocation with one run by another stockpicker with a similar value-investing philosophy. This will ensure the portfolio remains balanced across investment styles, regions, and sectors, and continues to seek to generate market outperformance from stock selection.
“We would like to express our appreciation to Ben, his team, and Jupiter for their contribution to Alliance Trust over the last seven years and wish Ben well in his new venture, which we will monitor with interest. At the same time, we are excited by the opportunity to introduce a new stockpicker with an innovative and disciplined value process, and a large and diverse team providing research breadth and fresh ideas.”
The new stockpicker, Arga, was founded in 2010 by A. Rama Krishna, bringing over three decades of experience in global and emerging markets equities. The company holds £11.8bn assets under management as of the end of March.
