Somerset Capital’s collapse in December last year highlighted just how reliant asset managers can be on the UK’s largest wealth management group.
Reports at the time indicated that Somerset’s assets under management (AUM) had dropped by two-thirds after St James’s Place (SJP) withdrew a mandate from the emerging markets specialist.
This was not the first time a fund firm had been forced to shut after losing an SJP mandate. In 2013 Boston-based Liberty Square Asset Management closed following the termination of a mandate to manage UK equities. At the time, SJP assets were said to represent nearly 90% of its total AUM.
