Alliance Trust boss claims restructure rebuffs critics

Alliance Trust chief executive Katherine Garrett-Cox has argued the investment trust’s new unconstrained approach would serve to rebuff criticism that it did not add value to investors.

‘One of the criticisms I’ve received is that they [investors] say: “I can buy all of these companies in the UK, so where are you adding value?”’ she said.

She added: ‘When we announced the restructure and went on the road in September, people got it. Where we’ve been successful, is that we [now] have a truly global offering.’

The investment trust shares are trading at a discount of just under 15%.

Garrett-Cox (pictured) said there was no target discount, but that she would like to ‘trade more in line with the peer group’.

Alliance Trust head of equities Ilario Di Bon has cut the investment trust’s holdings from 200 to 97 and has made sustainable transport its main theme.

One of the new holdings in Hynundai Mobis, a South Korean auto parts supplier. According to Di Bon, it commanded the lion's share of the value created across the Hyundai Group.

Di Bon added he had ‘beefed up’ the theme of Asian automation, emerging luxury and introduced the new theme of ‘eating habits’.

One holding which illustrates eating habits is Novo Nordisk, a Danish global producer of insulin for the treatment of diabetics.

‘The flip side of McDonald’s success in China is that the rate of diabetes is going to explode over the next seven to ten years, so Novo Nordisk is well positioned in China,’ he said.