Edinburgh fund manager’s UK arm suffers £8m loss

Assets under management at Martin Currie Investment Management (MCIM) fell from £4.5 billion to £4bn over the period.

MCIM, like the wider Martin Currie Group, has been owned by US fund house Legg Mason since 2014.

MCIM saw turnover fall from £47.9m in the previous financial year to £34.6m in 2015/16.

The performance represents a fall of 28 per cent.

However, company secretary Paul Evitt stressed 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.

Meanwhile, Finance director Ralph Campbell also explained that 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 includes Asian, Australian and US businesses, does not publish consolidated accounts since its takeover by Legg Mason.

Mr Campbell said that the UK arm accounts for 15 per cent of the group’s 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.