Aviva Investors has appointed Liontrust's Gary West and James Inglis-Jones to manage 35 per cent of its £1 billion (about $1.5 billion) European manager of managers funds range, previously run by Mirabaud, WealthBriefing can confirm.

The pair - who run Liontrust’s European Growth, European Absolute Return and European Absolute Alpha funds - will work alongside existing manager Lazard, which will run the remaining 65 per cent.

It is understood that Aviva's multi-managers, Ian Aylward and Peter Fitzgerald, thought Mirabaud’s European team was “not different enough” to Lazard with regards to how it invested clients’ money, according to FT Adviser.

“Lazard has an index-aware approach with quite a defensive return profile and outperforms most in falling markets. We felt the Liontrust managers would be a good satellite to that,” Aylward explained, the publication said. “They run a higher beta portfolio and invest further down the market cap scale and so it is higher risk, which is why we have given them a 35 per cent share,” Aylward added.