It has been a hard year for the Edinburgh investment house. First it had to absorb a difficult merger with Hill Samuel – many of whose fund managers preferred to Find new jobs rather than leave London for bonny Scotland.
It lost its one real star manager, Albert Morillo, head of European equities, who jumped ship to BlackRock prompting several clients to follow.
Then Dudley Fired his head of UK equities, Mike Corless, in the process openly criticizing him for poor performance.
But more crucially for Dudley, more headlines loomed when he undiplomatically suggested that Scottish Widows’ parent, Lloyds TSB, which paid more than £7 billion ($11 billion) for the insurer, was not fully committed to fund management and said that the business should be spun off.
“They [Lloyds] are not 100% persuaded that asset management is a core business,” he said. “If they are not going to make the investment to build the global business it would be logical to package Scottish Widows and sell it off.”
Having put one foot in it, Dudley decided to plant the other one too. “We are like a one-year-old racehorse who shows great potential but they are not sure yet and we haven’t got the stable’s commitment to train it and turn it into a truly champion two- and three-year-old,” he whinnied.
His bosses clearly disagreed with this view.
Scottish Widows and Lloyds heads, Mike Ross and Peter Ellwood, countered with a joint statement saying Lloyds was totally committed to Scottish Widows. “It always has been and it continues to be,” they said.
Despite this, Ross denies that there was any falling out over this altercation and says he is sorry to see Dudley go after three years in charge. “We discussed it and put it behind us,” he says.
However it is hard to believe their relationship had not been seriously damaged by Dudley’s outburst. For his part, Dudley is heading back to the US to work for Northern Trust Global Investments in Chicago.
Taking over with plenty on their plate are Dudley’s deputy Bill Main and Sandy Nairn who joins from Templeton Group as chief investment officer.
