Standard Life Investment's pay seems exceptionally generous

There's been much tub-thumping about excessive fund manager bonuses in Scotland this year, notably at Alliance Trust and Martin Currie, but it seems that Standard Life Investments (SLI) is among the most extravagant payers north of the border.

SLI was hiring last year, despite redundancies within the Standard Life group, and the average staff numbers during 2010 was 643, compared with 603 in 2009, according to its annual report recently filed at Companies House.

It's also rewarding them more handsomely - staff costs swelled to 102.8m, or an average cost per head of 159.8k in 2010. This is an 18.2% rise on 2009. If you delve down into salary expenses, this works out as an average of 114.3k for each employee.

Even so, this looks generous when compared to other fund managers in Scotland. Staff costs at Alliance Trust, which faced a shareholder revolt over its executive pay, work out as an average cost per head of 70.3k, while salaries and bonuses at Martin Currie were 28.7m last year, or 109.9k for each of its 261 employees.

Such averages are, of course, misleading. Martin Currie employs just 57 investment professionals who would have consumed the lion's share of compensation at the firm. Similarly, according to asset management headhunters, packages at SLI are "heavily weighted" towards star performers.

Nonetheless, it has a reputation for paying more than its peers.

"Last year we looked to acquire a team from one Scottish fund manager - everything from juniors to the chief investment officer - and our research showed that average compensation came in at 90k," says an asset management headhunter north of the border. "Even this we thought was high."

SLI's profits for 2010 were up substantially year-on-year. It was 64.9m in the black last year, compared to 34.1m in 2009.