Alliance Trust will aim to replace women with women after board shake-up, says Lord Smith of Kelvin

Dundee-based fund management firm Alliance Trust says it wants to recruit women to its new-look board after a trio of female directors were ousted from it.

Chairman Lord Smith of Kelvin said he was aware of the need to recruit women to the seven-man board.

The past twelve months have seen the board engaged in a fierce battle between managers and activist shareholders.

The whole board will have been replaced in the space of 18 months, and no women are left on it.

Half of the workforce of 311 is female, but among the top 61 managers, only 25 per cent are women.

That despite the wealth manager having a strong track record of women in charge.

Katherine Garrett-Cox, the chief executive, was removed from the board last October, and will leave the company this week and the firm’s latest full-year results included no commentary from the chief executive.

Also ousted from the group board was Susan Noble, who remains in the chair at a subsidiary, Alliance Trust Investments.

Karin Forseke – who succeded Lesley Knox in 2012 - stepped down as chairwoman in November, as the boardroom turmoil worsened and the previous business strategy was replaced.

The company had been taking a longer-term approach to results, with more emphasis on attracting investors with an interest in backing companies with strong social and environmental credentials as well as good governance.

Commenting on the results for 2015, Lord Smith of Kelvin said: “I am acutely aware of the lack of gender diversity on the current board as a result of the recent changes.

“Alliance Trust has long been a leader in the area of board diversity, and this is an issue which I am determined to address at the earliest opportunity.”

The full year results for 2015 reflect some of that change, and the costs of it.

The discount, or gap between Alliance Trust’s market value and the valuation of its portfolio of assets, was strongly criticised for being too large. It has been cut from 12 per cent to 8 per cent during the past year.

Assets under management at the Alliance Trust subsidiary are now around £5bn, including a net inflow of funds during last year.

Third party assets under management - which Alliance Trust has attracted from outside its own investor base - reached £2.1bn by the end of December.

Total revenue at the Tayside firm fell from £274m to £200m. Pre-tax profit declined from £229m to £145m.

While administrative costs rose from £35m to £45m, there is a target of cutting £6m from costs at the investment business during this year.

The dividend for Alliance Trust investors is being increased for the 49th consecutive year. That makes it one of only four companies on the FTSE all share index that can claim to have such a consistent record.