Losses deepen at UK wealth manager
The UK arm of wealth management group WMG lost more than £1m (€1.3m) in its final year before founder Mehmet Dalman, the former Commerzbank director, transferred some of its most senior staff to Toscafund, the UK hedge fund manager he helped set up in June.
WMG Limited recorded a loss of £1.3m in the year ended October 31 last year, according to its accounts published at Companies House. In the previous year, it had made a loss of £168,000.
The company’s filing included a paragraph in the directors report that said: “there is a reasonable expectation that the company has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future. Notwithstanding this, the company is assured of continuing necessary financial support from WMG Holdings Limited to enable it to meet its liabilities as they fall due. Therefore, the directors continue to adopt the going concern basis in preparing these financial statements.”
Company accounts do not usually include a paragraph of this nature. WMG Holdings Limited is registered in Jersey and its accounts were not available.
Dalman told Financial News that overall, the WMG Group – which includes a hedge fund management operation in Hong Kong – had more or less broken even for the year.
The accounts of WMG Limited showed its revenue fell from £4.2m in 2006 to £2.6m last year. It reduced its administrative expenses, but only from £4.3m to just under £4m. It achieved this in part by reducing the average number of its investment management staff from 13 to six, though it maintained the average number of its administration staff at 13.
Dalman became vice-chairman of Toscafund, a $5bn hedge fund run by his friend Martin Hughes, in June. The following month he took WMG senior staff with him, including Chris Jones to take charge of risk management and Richard Greer to handle investor relations, while former WMG colleague Paresh Shah was expected to become involved in the operational side.
Dalman said in July that WMG would continue with an increased emphasis on growing in Asia, where its $400m long/short Asian equity fund made more than 20% last year: “Asia is where the growth has been and the objective is to strengthen operations there.”
- write to whutchings@efinancialnews.com
del.icio.us
Digg
Newsvine
reddit
StumbleUpon
