Alliance Trust boss takes share options as total stake hits £3.7m

Katherine Garrett-Cox, the chief executive of Dundee-based wealth manager Alliance Trust, has netted herself close to £700,000 through the exercising of share options linked to a long-term incentive plan.

The trust said Ms Garrett-Cox acquired 138,582 shares which she was awarded as part of her incentive plans for 2011 and 2012.

To cover the tax liability, she promptly sold 65,266 at around £5 each.

She now holds a total of 743,809 shares in the business, worth more than £3.7 million.

The windfall will be a welcome boost to Ms Garrett-Cox who has had a rollercoaster first half of 2015, having been named winner of the prestigious Veuve Clicquot Business Woman Award but also having to fight, and then cave to, activist shareholder Elliott Advisors after the US hedge fund launched a campaign to parachute a trio of new directors onto her board amid claims that she was being paid too much.

Two directors from Elliott were eventually accepted on to the Alliance board in return for a year-long truce.