Gilbert can see ‘glimmer of hope’ for Aberdeen

Martin Gilbert, chief executive and founder of Aberdeen Asset Management has said that despite a recent onslaught of bad news for the firm, “There is a glimmer of hope this year, but no more.”

Speaking just after Aberdeen was recently relegated from the FTSE 100 to the FTSE 250 as its market cap dropped, and removed from the top 10 list of most popular fund management brands in Europe, Mr Gilbert stated that he remains positive.

He said: “It’s been a tough three years as emerging markets and value investing have been out of fashion. There is a glimmer of hope this year, but no more. The key is just to keep the faith, keep the style, don’t cut at the point of maximum pain and don’t try to trade your way out of the situation. Just wait until markets come back our way.

When we speak Gilbert is in the midst of a hectic travel schedule, taking him from Sydney to Tokyo, Shanghai and Beijing, and ending up in Singapore.

Poor performance in its core business of emerging markets has rocked the specialist manager, precipitationg outflows and poor performance across many of its funds, but this has left Gilbert puzzled.

He said: “Coming out to Asia you wonder why everyone is worried, everything is booming out here.

“You just need to come out to Asia and China to feel the energy. It’s obviously growing and I think the key to investing in emerging markets is turning that growth into finding the companies to invest in, and that’s what we spend our time doing.”

With £290.5bn in assets under management, Aberdeen saw £9.1bn of outflows in the last three months of 2015, although this was a drop from the £12.7bn outflows the previous quarter.