The boards of Artemis Alpha Trust and Aurora Investment Trust, which is managed by Phoenix Asset Management, have agreed to merge.
This coincides with the retirement of John Dodd, executive chairman and co-founder of Artemis Fund Managers, who manages the £137m Artemis Alpha Trust. Kartik Kumar, the trust’s co-manager, will move to Phoenix later this year.
If the merger proposal is approved by both trusts’ shareholders, Artemis Alpha will be wound up and its shareholders will receive shares in Aurora, unless they opt for a cash exit instead.
The enlarged Aurora trust will be renamed Aurora UK Alpha and will continue to be managed by Gary Channon, Phoenix’ co-founder and chief investment officer. Deutsche Numis estimates that its net assets will amount to £325m.
Both trusts have beaten their benchmark and sector over five years but Aurora is the better performer, as the chart below shows. Aurora also pipped Artemis to the post over three and 10 years to 30 August 2024.
Performance of trusts vs benchmark and sector over 5yrs
Source: FE Analytics