Alliance Witan has completed the transition of assets from Witan Investment Trust into Alliance Witan, following shareholder approval for the combination of Alliance Trust and Witan earlier this month.
Amid the transition, Alliance Witan’s investment manager Willis Towers Watson removed Black Creek Investment Management from the trust, replacing it with EdgePoint Wealth Management. EdgePoint, a Toronto-based company managing $25bn in client assets, will be responsible for 7% of the Alliance Witan portfolio.
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Craig Baker, CIO of Willis Towers Watson and chair of the Alliance Witan Investment Committee, said: “We would like to express our appreciation to the team at Black Creek for their contribution to the Company since their appointment in 2017.
“While we continue to rate Black Creek highly, a senior member of the team left in the last 12 months on health grounds, and we have been evaluating succession planning for some time.
“While Bill Kanko has no specific retirement date in mind and there are other experienced investors at the firm, we have taken the opportunity to switch to a manager in which we have high conviction, and which brings a fresh perspective to the new, combined portfolio.”
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The portfolio’s largest manager allocations belong to Veritas and GQG Global, both responsible for 13.5%. Willis Towers Watson said the risk profile of the portfolio has remained “relatively unchanged” and costs associated with the portfolio transition amount to under 0.04% of the portfolio.
“Now that Witan’s assets are fully invested, it is business as usual. We will be using the same proven investment approach we have always used for Alliance Witan, although we will be retaining a small number of Witan’s discounted investment trust holdings, which represent less than 3% of the portfolio, until such time that they can be sold at an attractive price for shareholders,” Baker said.
