Don't cancel that skiing holiday - yet
Nasty things may have knocked a Newcastle-based mortgage bank, but that doesn't mean fund managers in Scotland are panicking about their bonuses.
OK, Baillie Gifford has reportedly lost 250m through an ill-advised dalliance with Northern Rock shares - but the rest of Scotland's asset management community is said to be sanguine about pay. For instance, firms such as Aberdeen Asset Management, Resolution and Aegon have all enjoyed strong growth in the earlier part of the year.
Mike Stirton, business manager at recruiters Change CRS in Edinburgh, says fund managers with incentives tied to individual performance - such as those within third-party administrators - may do best this year come bonus time, as many of them are on decent completion bonuses. "Whilst parent companies may perform well, the third-party client may not necessarily have had a great year profit-wise - so those on bonuses largely tied to company performance may suffer," he says.
Employers could be forgiven for being reluctant to shell out extravagantly with basic salaries to attract big hitters. But Tom Rawson, a consultant at Morgan McKinley Scotland, says pay is on the up: "Tightening candidate pools in both Glasgow and Edinburgh have meant employers are competing directly against each other and are still willing to pay premiums to get the best people. There's no sign of that stopping.'
"We're still seeing huge growth,' confirms Stirton. "In the short term, we wouldn't expect the market's turbulence to affect recruitment." But he warns: "We may see a slowdown in strategic roles in the future, as fund managers are becoming more cautious in terms of new products and funds."
