By David Thorpe, FT Adviser, 11 July 2024:
When Andrew Bell announced in March that he intended to retire as fund manager and chief executive of Witan Investment Trust, it sparked a race across the City to win the fund management contract, which, at around £1.5bn, was among the biggest mandates to come on to the open market in recent years.
That such a mandate came to the market at a time when most fund houses have been bruised by outflows only added to the fervour of industry chatter..
Initially 50 asset management firms pitched to run the trust, some on the basis of continuing with the fund-of-funds approach, and others seeking to run it as a conventional global equity fund.
FT Adviser understands that among the 50 bidders were Baillie Gifford and Harwood Capital, both of which sought to run the trust as a direct equity fund..
A decision was taken early that the multi-manager approach would continue, with Ross saying: “The shareholders are used to this approach and I think one of the risks of hiring one individual to manage the trust by buying individual equities is that you could end up hiring them at the top of their market cycle, and it’s downhill from there.” ..
James Carthew, head of investment company research at QuotedData, says: “I am in favour of this merger. I think Witan shareholders moving over to Alliance Trust will be getting similar geographical exposure and style exposure, but with better performance.
“I think the reason Alliance Trust has performed well is that it has exposures to different parts of the market and different styles, so its not reliant on something like the oil price going up or down. That tends to mean that even when it has rough patches, they don’t tend to be that rough.”
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