Axa-owned dealer group ipac has restructured the manager line-up of its $2.7 billion international shares diversified portfolios, leading to $1.16 billion in new mandates.

Ipac restructured the growth-oriented segment of the portfolio, introducing three new managers: Harding Loevner, Carnegie Asset Management and AllianceBernstein Global Thematic Research.

Harding Loevner will manage $375 million, Carnegie $240 million and AllianceBernstein $170 million.

In addition, Pzena Investment Management has been mandated to implement a concentrated value-oriented portfolio and will manage $375 million, alongside existing manager LSV Asset Management, which manages $215 million.

As a result of the review, ipac has terminated investment mandates with AllianceBernstein in both growth and value, and a growth mandate with GMO.

"Our research confirmed the opportunity to improve return outcomes by mandating managers to operate more concentrated investment mandates," ipac chief investment officer Jeff Rogers said.

"We concluded that there is evidence that bottom-up fundamental managers who operate mandates focused on their highest-conviction ideas are more likely to outperform over the long term.

"High-conviction mandates . lead to a wider opportunity set of skilled managers applying diversifying processes and operating with different perspectives."
 
The review also found it was appropriate to maintain diversified mandates for quantitative managers.

"Our research reaffirmed the importance of accessing differentiated investment processes and maintaining style diversification to improve the reliability of returns relative to the benchmark," Rogers said.