We are justifiably proud of our best-in-class* global Stock Pickers. Each has been hand-picked by WTW, to run a part of our investment portfolio - and manage a concentrated set of high conviction stocks. Each brings their own distinct investment style and between them they cover a range of value, growth and quality stock picking. Together, their complementary styles create a diversified portfolio, a core holding for every generation. Whether you’re saving for school fees, a better retirement or looking to leave a legacy for the next generation.
Most of our Managers have been responsible for managing equity portfolios of over $1bn. All have invaluable experience of successfully steering portfolios through positive and negative market cycles. Individual UK investors can only access their combined high conviction stock selections through Alliance Trust.
To find out more about the experience and investment styles of each of our Managers, please watch their videos – or read their biographies.
* As rated by Willis Towers Watson.
Bill Kanko is Founder and President of Black Creek Investment Management. He was the lead manager for the Trimark Fund and Trimark Select Growth Fund, with combined assets of more than $13bn.
From the Manager's Desk: Bill Kanko
Approach
Performance built on best ideas: 1 year on
Stock Spotlight: Bill Kanko on Oerlikon and Henry Schein
Introducing Bill Kanko, Founder, Black Creek Investment Management
Investment style
Black Creek’s approach is to look five to ten years ahead and find stocks ‘across the cap spectrum’. Its approach is long term and contrarian.
Rajiv Jain founded GQG Partners in June 2016, having previously worked at Vontobel Asset Management for 22 years. He manages both a global equity and an emerging markets mandate.
From the Manager's Desk
Global quality growth
Performance built on best ideas
Stock Spotlight: Rajiv Jain on Alphabet and Heineken
Introducing Rajiv Jain, Founder, GQG Partners
Investment style
Rajiv looks for high-quality and sustainable businesses, whose underlying strength should outweigh its environment and where that company’s strength can only truly be understood through bottom-up analysis.
Ben Whitmore has over 20 years of experience and joined Jupiter in 2006. He has also worked at Schroders, managing both retail and institutional portfolios and about £2bn of assets. Ben is supported by Dermot Murphy, Co-Portfolio Manager.
From the Manager's Desk
Approach
Performance built on best ideas: 1 year on
Stock Spotlight: Dermot Murphy on Marks & Spencer and Western Union
Introducing Ben Whitmore, Head of Strategy, Jupiter Asset Management
Investment style
Ben is well known as a long-standing practitioner of contrarian value investing. He seeks businesses that are out of favour and under-valued, but have prominent franchises and sound balance sheets.
Lyrical Asset Management’s investment management team is led by Co-Founder and Chief Investment Officer, Andrew Wellington, and includes Co-Portfolio Manager, Caroline Ritter. Andrew has also worked at Neuberger Berman and New Mountain Capital, where he co-managed the $1.2bn New Mountain Vantage Fund.
From the Manager's Desk: Andrew Wellington
Keeping faith with Value
Performance built on best ideas
Stock Spotlight: Andrew Wellington on HCA and Adient
Introducing Andrew Wellington, Co-Founder, Lyrical Asset Management
Investment style
Value matters to Lyrical Asset Management. They adopt a strict discipline around investing in quality companies, seeking businesses they believe will generate attractive returns, are resilient with reasonable debt levels, offer positive growth, attractive margins, competent management and the flexibility to react to all phases of the business cycle.
Hugh Sergeant is the CIO of Equities, having previously held similar roles at Societe Generale Asset Management, UBS Phillips & Drew and Gartmore.
From the Manager’s Desk: Hugh Sergeant
The Beauty of Baidu: The Value in Chinese equities
Performance built on best ideas: 1 year on
Stock Spotlight: Hugh Sergeant on Applus and Baidu
Introducing Hugh Sergeant and River and Mercantile Asset Management
Investment style
Hugh has put in place a model that helps him identify value at different stages of a company’s lifecycle, also giving him signals as to when that value might be unlocked. He has shown strength in smaller companies and classic ‘recovery’ situations.
Sustainable Growth Advisers (SGA) was founded in 2003 by George Fraise, Gordon Marchand and Rob Rohn, averaging over 30 years of investment experience.
From the Manager’s Desk: George Fraise
Looking 8 years into the future
Performance built on best ideas: 1 year on
Stock Spotlight: George Fraise on Novo Nordisk and AIA Group
Introducing George Fraise and Sustainable Growth Advisers
Investment style
SGA’s investment style is to identify those few truly differentiated global businesses that possess strong pricing power, offer recurring revenue generation and benefit from attractive, long runways of growth.
Andy Headley is Head of Global Strategies at Veritas Asset Management. Andy has over 20 years’ investment experience.
From the Manager’s Desk: Andy Headley
Taking a 10-year view
Performance built on best ideas: 1 year on
Stock Spotlight: Andy Headley talks Airbus and Facebook
Introducing Andy Headley, Veritas Asset Management
Investment style
Veritas Asset Management uses a proprietary Real Return investment process with an absolute return mindset. It deploys a number of methods including themes to help identify industries and companies that are positioned to benefit from medium-term growth, globally.
C.T. Fitzpatrick is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer at Vulcan Value Partners. He has over 30 years of experience and now manages over US$14bn of assets.
From the Manager's Desk: C.T. Fitzpatrick
Introducing C.T. Fitzpatrick, Founder, Vulcan Value Partners
Investment style
C.T. and his team focus on finding a small number of very high-quality businesses that have the ability to compound in value over the long term. Then, when their share prices become discounted, the team make a move.
Michael Sramek has been with Sands Capital since 2001. The firm focuses on finding high-quality businesses that are innovative and can sustain above-average growth over the long term.
Investment style
Sands has six investment criteria for investing in companies: sustainable, above-average earnings; leadership in a promising business area; significant competitive advantage; clear mission; financial strength; rational valuation.
Metropolis Capital was founded by former management consultants Simon Denison-Smith and Jonathan Mills in 2008. They are value investors with a private equity style of evaluating holdings.
Investment Style
Simon and Jonathan focus on long-term market recognition of the fundamental value of their investments and income generated from those investments.
The performance of both our Managers and overall portfolio is overseen by WTW, our Investment Manager and its Investment Committee, which is chaired by Craig Baker, Global Chief Investment Officer.* The Investment Committee is wholly accountable to the Alliance Trust Board, and is charged with the following responsibilities:
Other key members of the committee include Co-Portfolio Managers Stuart Gray and Mark Davis. Together the team brings to bear over 62 years of invaluable investment experience. They are supported by a team of about 130 research and portfolio management professionals around the world.
* The Alliance Trust Board has appointed Towers Watson Investment Management Limited (TWIM) as its Alternative Investment Fund Manager (AIFM). TWIM is part of Willis Towers Watson (WTW). On this website we refer to both TWIM as Willis Towers Watson or ‘WTW’.
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