Martin Currie, the Edinburgh fund boutique led by Willie Watt, saw its internal share price fall from £15.50 to £3.10 last year as the company battled its first ever loss, according to the annual accounts.

Remuneration of the highest-paid director, assumed to be Mr Watt, which had almost halved from £865,000 to £438,000 in 2011, eased to £425,000. Staff numbers fell by 30 to 225.

Currie earlier this month revealed a £12.3m after-tax loss for 2012, on revenue almost halved from £65m in 2011 to £34m, and assets under management as low as £4.2bn in June last year.

But Mr Watt said the firm was in a fifth consecutive quarter of positive fund flows, which had returned it to profit and helped assets recover to £5.5bn.

The accounts show the most significant of the group's five employee share schemes saw 150,000 options lapse last year but 343,000 new options granted at an average exercise price in September of £3.10, compared with a £15.50 average in April 2011. Currie paid out shares worth £2.7m in lieu of bonuses in 2012, and plans to disburse almost £3m of bonuses in shares this year.

The group's net debt reduced by £4m to £17m, after paying down £20m from a £30m refinancing last year, £2.4m of it contributed by employees. There was a fall from £9.7m in 2011 to £2.2m last year in the dividend payment to the group's Bermuda-registered parent Martin Currie (Holdings), which according to Mr Watt now has debt of around £30m.