Dundee investment trust company Alliance Trust plc announced that its investment manager Willis Towers Watson (WTW) has terminated River and Mercantile (R&M) Asset Management LLP’s mandate as one of the ten stock pickers in the company’s global equity portfolio.

The £3 billion Dundee fund said R&M’s allocation of approximately 6% of the company’s portfolio has been re-allocated amongst the company’s other nine stock pickers.

The transition of the portfolio has been undertaken by BlackRock’s transition management team.

Craig Baker, Chief Investment Officer at WTW and Chair of the Alliance Trust Investment Committee, said: “We would like to start by expressing our appreciation to Hugh Sergeant and the team at R&M for their contribution to Alliance Trust over the last five years.

“Given the relatively small allocation we have had with them and some of the recent changes at R&M, we have taken this opportunity to reallocate this 6% of assets to some of the existing stock pickers.”

Martin Gilbert’s investment firm AssetCo plc said on January 25 it agreed an all-share deal worth £99.8 million to buy fund manager River & Mercantile Group (RMG).

RMG shareholders will own 41.6% of the combined group after the deal.