Alliance Trust (ATST ), the Willis Tower Watson-managed multi-manager fund, has removed Jupiter’s Ben Whitmore from its investment line-up and appointed US global value fund manager ARGA in his place.

Stamford-based ARGA has been allocated the 8% portion of Alliance’s £3.5bn rust that Whitmore has run for seven years.

Craig Baker, WTW’s chief investment officer, said that the difficult decision to replace Whitmore (pictured below), who was one of the firm’s first selections when it took on Alliance Trust in March 2017, followed the announcement in January that he was leaving Jupiter to set up his own firm Brickwood Asset Management.

‘While we continue to have high regard for Ben’s skill as an investor, this change of circumstances introduces potential risks which will take time to fully assess,’ Baker said. ‘We have therefore decided to replace Ben’s allocation with one run by another stock picker with a similar value-investing philosophy.’

‘This will ensure the portfolio remains balanced across investment styles, regions, and sectors, and continues to seek to generate market outperformance from stock selection,’ Baker added.

Founded in 2010 by chief investment officer A Rama Krishna, ARGA has £11.8bn under management. Krishna has 30 years of experience in global and emerging markets equities and previously worked at Pzena Investment Management, Citigroup and AllianceBernstein.

Alliance Trust uses 10 external fund managers picked by WTW, which was appointed after the company sold its fund management subsidiary to Liontrust.

After a slow start, WTW’s approach has come good with Alliance’s total shareholder returns of 72.3% matching the MSCI World index over five years and beating the benchmark’s 29.2% over three years with a 20.9% return. At £12.06, up 0.5% today, the shares stand on a comparatively narrow 4% discount below net asset value.