TH E UK arm of fund manager Martin Currie turned a £10.2 million pre-tax loss into a £1.6m profit in the year to March 2018 after seeing a drastic turnaround in the level of performance fees it earned.
Edinburgh-based Martin Currie Investment Management (MCIM) saw turnover rise by 54 per cent, from £33.1m to £51m, with much of the rise down to performance fees increasing from just under £1m the previous year to £18.5m.
It is not unusual for the business’s turnover to move around in this way, with outgoing company secretary Paul Evitt noting in the firm’s accounts, which have just been filed at Companies House, that “turnover can fluctuate based on performance fees earned”.
Although markets grew strongly over the course of 2017, average assets under management at MCIM remained unchanged at £4 billion year on year.
The company’s six directors earned an average of £558,000 for the year, with the highest-paid executive receiving £784,000. The average member of staff earned just under £170,000.
Like the wider Martin Currie Group, which does not publish consolidated accounts, MCIM has been owned by US fund house Legg Mason since 2014.
In the year to March the group, which includes Asian, Australian and US businesses, saw revenues increase by 65%, from $69m to $114m.
Mr Evitt wrote in the accounts that the rise was down to average assets under management increasing from $13.8bn to $19.7bn “mainly due to net positive inflows particularly into our Australian business”. The group earned performance fees of $30.2m for the year.
Martin Currie’s range of global open-ended funds merged 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.
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