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31-10-2002 Scotsman Living in luxury as thousands face ruin By GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN WHEN Chris Fishwick faced the Commons Treasury Committee this week, the bluff Lancastrian arrogantly batted back MPs' questions with the impatient tone of a businessman who believed that time was money, and that his questioners were wasting it. Unable to disguise his contempt for the thousands of investors whose lives were ruined as a split fund market once valued at £15 billion slumped to half that sum, the 41-year-old former director of Aberdeen Asset Managementwas cast perfectly in the role of a rich man who resented having to justify his failure. Allegations of mis-selling and suggestions that managers colluded to boost assets and fees from split trusts are now under investigation by the Financial Services Authority. Those who followed Mr Fishwick's exhortations to invest in the split funds he managed would have done better to followhis example and plough their hard-earned cash into bricks and mortar. For while crumbling stock markets destroyed their investments, Mr Fishwick's real estate was safe. The result of that decision is a handsome family home in the East Sussex countryside, which Mr Fishwick shares with his wife Jillian and their young family. Archers, in London Road, Crowborough is valued at £2.5 million, and comes with a substantial outdoor heated swimming pool, landscaped gardens and enough guest bedrooms to host a respectable house party for City friends. A sign on the gate warns: "Please don't open the gate, dogs running here." But Mr Fishwick has not confined himself to property; cars, too, have caught his eye and he is said to own a purple Lamborghini Diablo that changes colour in daylight. Mr Fishwick has done well for himself. In 1999 he took home £931,000, including a bonus of £725,000. The following year he pocketed £1.7 million and last year his £350,000 salary was topped up with £53,000 in pension contributions, £1.4 million in "other benefits" and a further £1.4 million "deferred benefit" for loyalty to the company. Those who know him say the image he conveyed before the Commons committee is untypical and that in private he is quiet and shy, refusing to flaunt his wealth and enjoying the company of friends. Others say he can be domineering and they question how comfortably the image of a quiet family man sits alongside late nights in the BowLane Wine Vaults in the City of London. Until his fall from grace, Mr Fishwick enjoyed an enviable reputation as a financial whizzkid, whose mastery of the markets ensured that he earned nearly twice as much as his boss. Born on 16 October, 1961, Mr Fishwick left the Deanery High School in Wigan with 13 O-Levels and embarked on a career in finance. He joined the stockbrokers Capel-Cure Myers in 1981and in six years he worked his way up to become an associate director. In 1987 he joined Royal Trust Asset Management as a director before being made chief executive of Stronghold Asset Managers. He joined Aberdeen Asset Management in September 1991, and in 1999 the company launched a £100 million split-capital investment trust, managed by Mr Fishwick, which promised to invest 70 per cent in zero-weighted dividend shares, placing the remaining 30 per cent in fixed-interest and income shares to cover costs and interest payments. Aberdeen said it expected the trust to generate annual returns in excess of nine per cent and Mr Fishwick was bullish: "We are launching this when there is a high level of demand for zeros. Zeros represent a relatively low risk investment and can be relied upon to produce almost unfettered growth even in the most volatile equity markets. Their prices do not generally fall back even when equities decline."
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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