Craig Baker

Alliance Trust said New York-based Lomas “does not identify with a particular pre-defined style of investing; instead, it adapts its portfolios to market opportunities, differentiating it from the other stock pickers in the Alliance Trust portfolio”.

Meanwhile, the appointment of FPA, which has managed part of the Alliance Trust portfolio since it implemented its current investment strategy in April 2017, has been terminated.

The team managing the company’s assets, led by Pierre Py and Greg Herr, left FPA on 16 October 2020 after setting up Phaeacian Partners, a joint venture with Polar Capital.

In a statement, Alliance Trust said it “thanks FPA for its stewardship on behalf of shareholders over the past three and a half years”.

Lomas is being allocated 9% of the company’s portfolio to manage. This will be funded from a reallocation of the portfolio, primarily the allocation previously managed by FPA.

A transition manager has been appointed and Lomas’ appointment will be effective once the transition has been completed. As part of the transition, adjustments are also being made by WTW to re-balance the risk in the portfolio.

Craig Baker, chairman of the Alliance Trust investment committee and global chief investment officer of Willis Towers Watson, said: “The Willis Towers Watson research team has identified Lomas, as a high calibre manager that has a differentiated approach to the other eight stock pickers managing the company’s portfolio.

“We believe this will bring a new source of outperformance, with a low correlation to the other stock pickers, ultimately leading to enhanced risk-adjusted returns and further diversity of the portfolio.

“Lomas utilises a thematically-driven investment process, within an unconstrained, style-agnostic approach. Its approach is quite distinctive and we are excited to introduce Lomas to our manager line up for the company. Lomas’ concentrated stock picks will only be accessible to UK retail investors through the company.

“We believe that the best way to deliver long-term outperformance to investors is to combine the best ideas from the best stock pickers globally into one high conviction but diversified portfolio, and offer it at a competitive fee.”