When Alliance Trust in April welcomed two externally-nominate directors onto its board, after weeks of hostile resistance costing £3m, it also promised a strategic review. That would include whether to continue managing the £2.7billion trust in-house, or to go the way of most of the industry and outsource it to external managers, after a competitive beauty parade. Aberdeen Asset Management boss Martin Gilbert has already put its head over the parapet, admitting in 2012 that he would be delighted to take it on.
Chief executive Katherine Garrett-Cox asserted in April that performance had turned a corner since she appointed in-house managers Peter Michaelis and Simon Clements only seven months earlier to replace her previous appointment as chief investment officer Ilario di Bon. Then in July, as the turnround wilted, she said six months was not long enough to judge performance. The two board appointments clearly signal a recognition of the need for fresh blood, only three years after the last shake-up which included the arrival of a new chairman. In Chris Samuel, it may well be that Alliance has alighted on a high-performing and highly experienced fund group executive with Scottish connections who is looking only for another non-executive role. But it is tempting to compare his record at Ignis, where he drove a significant improvement in both business and investment performance, with that of management at Alliance, and to speculate on whether a strong new leader might be Alliance’s way of heading off more radical change.
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