GOOD YEAR

DAVID NISH

GLASGOW'S fund management industry may have suffered its death blow with the £390 million sale of Ignis Asset Management, which employs 250 in the city, to Edinburgh-based Standard Life Investments (SLI). But for David Nish, Standard Life's chief executive, it was another key milestone for his masterplan to turn the venerable insurer into a modern asset gatherer and manager. The deal added a third to SLI assets taking them to £240bn. It was followed in September by the well-kept secret of the sale of Standard's Canadian business, its most significant deal since demutualisation in 2006 and at a £2.2bn sale price widely seen as being top end. Nish assured that the government's radical pension reforms will bring net gains to Standard, which is market leader in drawdown, and its shares are up over 16% this year.

RAY ENTWISTLE

The man who led private bank Adam & Co with distinction for two decades as chief executive then chairman became in March the first of the UK's new banking entrepreneurs. His start-up company Scoban secured the first licence awarded to a new bank under post-crash regulations, after a long slog raising only £4m from backers. Entwistle knew that the licence would reignite interest from potential customers and other wealthy investors, and then pulled off a partnership deal with insurer Hampden to guarantee that the bank would have a suitably patriotic name. After a scare around the referendum, when backers sat on their hands, the banker is now poised to announce that the bank has exceeded its ambitious £30m funding target and will finally open its doors in the first part of 2015.

GRAHAM BARNET

Reinventing a small quoted company three times since 2001 has seen Graham Barnet turn Sigma Capital from technology, venture and property investor into urban regeneration specialist. The apparently final incarnation saw the shares double during the year (before settling for a 50per cent uplift), as Sigma announced two major deals. It raised up to £67m of debt funding from Barclays, enabling the go-ahead for its 927-home programme in Manchester and Liverpool, and unveiled a partnership with Grainger the UK's biggest rented property group. Barnet is now confident that his local authority partnerships can create10,000 badly-needed new homes across UK cities by 2021.

BAD YEAR

TIM O'TOOLE

Just when it looked as though things couldn't get any worse for Tim O'Toole, FirstGroup's chief executive, in 2014 they surely did. Already battered by the 2013 rights issue and the revoked award of Virgin Rail's west coast franchise, First was jilted in all five of its franchise bids. It saw National Express win Essex Thameside, Go-Ahead and French group Keolis take Thameslink, and Serco grab its own Caledonian Sleepers. Then the main prize of ScotRail was handed to Dutch group Abellio - days after ScotRail was named 'rail operator of the year'. Finally, the plum of the East Coast franchise was pinched by none other than Virgin in a three-horse race. Meanwhile O'Toole's new chairman John Macfarlane was poached by Barclays, his UK bus and US operations recovered more slowly than expected - and cheaper petrol is luring many back into their cars.

PAULA BELL

The John Menzies finance director arrived in June 2013, succeeding long-serving Paul Dollman as one of the group's triumvirate of ruling executives, and the next few months saw smooth progress as the shares hit record highs above 800p. But the group's high-flying aviation division hit unexpected turbulence this year, prompting the shares to halve between July and November to 350p. In August came the shock announcement that aviation chief Craig Smyth had resigned, but would work his notice while the group searched for an overall chief executive. It came amid squeezed margins, faltering growth, and the loss of key contracts in its key ground-handling business, partly due to restructuring at Heathrow. Then in November came a full-blown profits warning and news that Mr Smyth had departed. Ms Bell continues to support the group's new chief executive Jeremy Stafford, who joined in October.

DAVID DUNSIRE

On October 3 Edinburgh's legal community was stunned to discover that 150-year-old law firm Tods Murray, led by David Dunsire, had been swallowed by local rival Shepherd & Wedderburn after sliding into administration. Around a third of its 138 staff were expected to be made redundant. Joint administrator Tom MacLennan of FRP Advisory said the firm had faced "an unsustainable gap between high fixed costs and income". In 2004, after rising into the UK's top 100 law firms, former leader Peter Misselbrook announced the firm would move from Queen Street into the smart new development at Edinburgh Quay - which proved to be a fatal expense. Executive partner Dunsire said: "We are grateful for the support of our clients over the years and look forward to working with our new colleagues at Shepherd and Wedderburn."