Martin Currie no longer appears to be a happy place to work
After a torrid third quarter, when assets under management fell by over 30% and profit forecasts have been slashed, Martin Currie still insists there are no plans for redundancies. However, high levels of staff turnover are an increasing concern for its investors.
Martin Currie says that it now expects profits for 2011 to come in at 12m, down from 14m in 2010.
Much of this is down to the dramatic decline in AUM - from 10bn to 6.4bn - during the last three months. 1.5bn of this outflow was down to market movements, 1.3bn was related to upheaval in its China operations and 900m was down to equity strategies and underperformance, said the firm.
Still, there are rising concerns about staff turnover at the firm. Firstly, there were the departures in China - Chris Ruffle, its portfolio manager in the region, left the firm in July following an SEC and FSA investigation into a potential "conflict of interest", along with fund manager Shifeng Ke and a six-strong Shanghai-based research team, to go it alone with their company Heartland Capital Management.
And since October, Neil Robson, manager of global equities left to join Threadneedle, its global resources co-manager Chris Butler left to pursue other interests and Stewart Higgins, head of European stocks, retired.
FT Adviser also points to a number of key departures in its sales and marketing team, including regional sales manager Magnus Graham, and the fact that 15 of its top directors have departed in the last month. This is a turnover rate of 30%.
Martin Currie prides itself on its traditionally high retention rate (some of these departures had been at the firm for over 20 years), and recent movements have investors jittery.
Andy Merricks, head of investments at Skerritt Consultants, said: "It doesn't paint a great picture of a happy place. There's so much competition out there that we don't need to take a risk with a company that has a question mark over it."
Still, Martin Currie insists that any staff who depart are being replaced and, despite the recent outflows, there are no plans for any job cuts.
