Witan has allocated approximately £100m to each of the managers, representing around 5% of assets. This has been funded by the termination of the Marathon mandate and £24m from cash resources.
It said the new managers will adopt a high conviction active approach to aid its objective to outperform the FTSE Europe ex-UK regional index as a benchmark.
Andrew Bell, chief executive of Witan, added the change would increase the trust’s actively-managed exposure to European equities after an improved political and economic backdrop during 2017.
He said: “The appointment of Crux and SW Mitchell, with concentrated portfolios, will significantly increase the active share of our European manager portfolios, from around 70% to 86%, with Witan’s overall combined active share rising to over 76% from c. 74% in June.
“We would like to thank Marathon Asset Management for their stewardship on behalf of our shareholders since 2007 (2010 in European equities). During what has been a challenging and volatile period, both for Europe and the UK, they have successfully added value against the index, for which, on behalf of shareholders, we thank them.”
Witan now has 10 external managers, covering UK, European, Asian, emerging market and global markets.
