Aberdeen Asset Management, humiliated by a powerful committee of MPs six years ago, was yesterday lauded by First Minister Alex Salmond as being among the international companies that were �key to the Scottish economy�s resilience to the current global economic pressures�.

Aberdeen Asset Management, humiliated by a powerful committee of MPs six years ago, was yesterday lauded by First Minister Alex Salmond as being among the international companies that were "key to the Scottish economy's resilience to the current global economic pressures".

Salmond, addressing an annual international investment conference staged by the fund group, said: "Scotland is not immune to the slowdown, however, our labour market continues to outperform the rest of the UK, high street spending remains robust and recent export figures have demonstrated that our companies remain globally competitive."

Against a background of local reports that the north-east of Scotland remains buoyant, Aberdeen Asset Management's chief executive Martin Gilbert said: "Aberdeen's strong business environment has helped to shelter it from some of the turmoil in the global economy and stock markets."

He went on: "The deterioration in the global economy however shows no signs of respite as Asian and Euro- pean economies succumb to the slowdown in US demand."

Gilbert said the oil price correction had eased pressure on inflation, and thus on interest rates, and that governments and companies around the world were taking "proactive steps that are supportive for the medium term".

He added: "From the perspective of Aberdeen Asset Management, although we would prefer stock markets higher, we are in the fortunate position of having a broad array of institutional clients globally, typically pension schemes continuing to allocate money to our highly-successful equity, fixed income and property strategies. Furthermore, our operations in Asia and the US provide us with exposure to the fastest-growing and largest markets worldwide."

On the change in Aberdeen's fortunes from their nadir six years ago when the chief executive was tormented by the Treasury Select Committee over the split-capital trust scandal, Gilbert commented later: "Clearly six years ago we were far too bullish, and went into the bear market over-geared with our balance sheet not in great shape. I think we hopefully learned a lot of lessons from that, it was a dreadful episode in the company's history and we learned the lessons."

Gilbert said the experience had taught Aberdeen to steer clear of complex debt products such as CDOs, about which he had warned in a conference speech in Monaco in July last year. "I didn't think it would happen as quickly as it did," he said. "It has still been tough, don't get me wrong, but we have a much stronger balance sheet We were cautious, inevit-ably if you had been through what we went through you do become more cautious naturally - or maybe it's just getting older."

On the equity markets, Gilbert said: "All our fund managers say although this is a painful market, it suits our style, it allows us to buy the stocks that have previously been too expensive more cheaply. We tend to outperform in flat or bear markets rather than in raging bull markets."

Gilbert went on: "However bad you might think the downturn is in equities, for the bond guys this is the worst bear market in their careers Liquidity has completely dried up, even in previously very liquid assets. The good thing about the bond market is that you can hold the bonds through a downturn to maturity and theoretically you are going to get your money back."

On property, where Aberdeen has pulled off two big acquisitions in the past year to become one of the UK's top 10 investors, Gilbert said: "We went into it with our eyes open, that property still had further to fall, and I still think that is the case Institutional investors are not selling their property, the problem is if you are over-geared, what you have to look at is the debt on property, that is the concern."

On the group's appetite for further deals, Gilbert said: "We are pretty clear that we are unlikely to do any big acquisitions, the only thing we look at is bolt-ons it is fair to say we are not looking at very much at the moment."