Horlick loses fund contract
NICOLA Horlick’s Bramdean Asset Management has lost its lucrative management contract at listed investment fund Bramdean Alternatives, five months after the end of a bruising spat with its biggest shareholder, property mogul Vincent Tchenguiz.
The contract has been passed to Aberdeen Asset Management for an initial three-year period. The fund’s board added it would bring forward a proposal to rebrand the company under the Aberdeen name.
The fund said Aberdeen had paid Bramdean Asset Management “an undisclosed sum as consideration” for the contract. City PM revealed earlier this year that Horlick, under the terms of her contract, is in line for a bumper $8.1m (£4.9m) “golden goodbye” if ousted before the conclusion of her five-year contract, which started in June 2007. The contract stipulated that “poor investment performance would not of itself” be enough to invalidate the deal.
Aberdeen has struck a 12-month consultancy agreement with Bramdean Asset Management, a move the fund said would provide continuity. Tchenguiz, the fund’s largest shareholder through his vehicle Elsina, said: “I fully endorse and support the outcome of the board’s deliberations.”