Alliance Trust to launch two core equity funds

Alliance Trust PLC, one of the UK's oldest and largest investment trusts, has announced that its new asset management business is launching two core funds in UK equity income and North American equities.

Under the umbrella of the Alliance Trust Investment Funds ICVC, the funds will give institutional and private investors direct access for the first time to the investment skills of the highly experienced and established teams running Alliance Trust's portfolio in these key areas.

Between them, the teams managing the UK and North American portfolios run around 57% of the Trust's quoted equity portfolio (as at 31 December 2008). The funds from Alliance Trust Asset Management, which is a new UK subsidiary of 120-year-old Alliance Trust PLC, launch on January 19 and the initial offer period lasts until February 6. The fund managers will run high-conviction, focused portfolios of around 30-45 stocks. Alliance Trust PLC will co-invest in the funds giving them scale at launch and enhanced appeal to larger institutional clients.

The Alliance Trust UK Equity Income Fund will be run by Neil Tong, Head of UK Equities, who has been working in investment for 22 years, 12 of which have been spent with Alliance Trust. Neil heads a team of four dedicated UK equity analysts.

The Alliance Trust North American Equity Fund will be run by Matthew Strachan, Head of North American Equities at Alliance Trust. Matthew has been with the company for 24 years and over that time has had experience investing in all the major areas where the Trust invests, including the UK, Europe, Japan, Asia and North America. The North American team comprises five experienced investment professionals with six decades of experience between them, one of whom is based on the ground in the United States.

Both lead managers benefit from tailored research reports and comprehensive analysis of daily economic data provided by the company's in-house Research Centre headed by Dr. Shona Dobbie. They also work closely with Alliance Trust's specialist global analysts, Angus McPhail, who covers oil and natural resources, and Tim Gibbens, who covers financials.

Alliance Trust Chief Executive Katherine Garrett-Cox said, "Our new UK asset management business draws on all that we do best, that is, investing for the long term using a proven process of rigorous analysis and assured stock-picking while keeping a keen eye on risk. Over the years, we have formed extremely able investment teams who use a successful, fundamental style of long-term investing that we believe is exactly what investors are looking for today. We are proud to be opening up new opportunities in two of the regions we know best. Alliance Trust Asset Management will make the most of our existing investment expertise to build a business over time that creates value both for new investors and for our existing shareholders."

Edward Troughton, Managing Director, Distribution at Alliance Trust Asset Management, said, "We are delighted to be launching these funds at a time when investors are looking for solid and secure investment opportunities and we believe these new funds should sit at the heart of any true long-term investor's portfolio. We are confident that institutional and retail investors and their advisers will welcome these new opportunities to invest alongside the Trust with highly experienced, tightly-knit teams with proven performance records and large capacity. We are keen to align our clients' interests with ours from the start and hence have structured a highly competitive fee model, whereby we blend a modest annual management charge with a performance fee which enables us to participate, with our clients, in any outperformance of the benchmark. By doing this we are able to offer fair value to our investors."

Full details about the funds and the terms are available at alliancetrust.co.uk/assetmanagement