Captive and poor?

Do captive funds, owned by the likes of insurance companies, really pay their fund managers less than independents? Not according to one Scots asset management heavyweight.

Alan Harden, chief executive of Dundee-based Alliance Trust, who recently lured Katherine Garret-Cox away from the fund management arm of insurance giant Aviva, dismisses the idea that captives pay less. He says Alliance has to pay on a par with large London groups and that it would not be in shareholders' interests for the investment trust not to pay top dollar.

Harden continues: "If you look at the cost of a world-class talent - the impact that they can have on your top line by growing the 2.8bn to 3bn, to 5bn, to 10bn. The material impact that they can have on that pool of corporate capital is nothing versus the cost of paying them competitively."

The American, who has been at the helm of Alliance for three years, is also dismissive of the notion that people take jobs back in Scotland for an easier life. He adds: "Some of the press I saw around Katherine suggested that she was coming here to work less than she did in London. It is just not the case. We are not hiring people to retire. We are hiring them to grow the company and whilst there is no doubt that it is a pleasant environment, they will work just as hard."

Joanna Black of Edinburgh-based Black Appointments is equally adamant that she would not take on a client looking to return to Scotland for an easier life. "If somebody thought that by taking a senior executive appointment in Scotland they were going to have an easier time I would have my concerns," she warns.