UK arm of fund manager makes £8m loss

THE UK arm of Edinburgh fund manager Martin Currie made a pre-tax loss of £8 million in the year to March 2016 after assets under management fell from £4.5 billion to £4bn.

Martin Currie Investment Management (MCIM), which like the wider Martin Currie Group has been owned by US fund house Legg Mason since 2014, saw turnover fall from £47.9m in the previous financial year to £34.6m in 2015/16.

While this represents a fall of 28 per cent, company secretary Paul Evitt pointed out that the preceding year covered a 15-month period. He added that performance fees, which fell from £4.6m to £1.9m, also had an impact on turnover.

Finance director Ralph Campbell noted while the numbers at MCIM had fallen year on year, the wider Martin Currie Group had seen assets under management increase by 48 per cent to £11.4bn over the 2016 calendar year.

The group, which does not publish consolidated accounts since the Legg Mason takeover, includes Asian, Australian and US businesses, with Mr Campbell stating that the UK arm accounts for 15 per cent of the total.

Mr Evitt added that the Martin Currie group has “continued to develop its relationship with the Legg Mason group” and is “seeking to identify and implement further opportunities to collaborate”.

This saw Martin Currie’s range of global open-ended funds merge into Legg Mason’s at the end of the 2015/16 financial year.

In the UK Martin Currie continues to manage three closed-ended investment trusts, including the Securities Trust of Scotland.