Brewin Dolphin sheds 23 staff

WEALTH adviser Brewin Dolphin yesterday announced it is cutting up to a tenth of its Edinburgh staff just weeks before it relocates to new offices in the city.

The move to cut 23 jobs in the city comes weeks after a major management reshuffle which saw chief executive Jamie Matheson announce his retirement after eight years in the role.

He has been replaced by David Nicol, who joined the board from Morgan Stanley last year.

The company said the Scottish job cuts affected staff in regulation and risk, change management and IT.

Brewin also lost 19 staff in Leicester who resigned to move over to rival Charles Stanley, which will open its first office in the city in August. A further ten jobs have been cut from the group’s Newcastle office.

Sources said the firm was “still having problems” with “tedious” new regulation which requires the firm to audit all its clients.

In February the company said it had lost 5 per cent of its income in three months to the end of January after it changed its charging structure in line with new rules brought in under the retail distribution review (RDR).

Total income for the quarter was up 13.7 per cent to £67.8 million, while assets under management stood at £26 billion.

The firm became the first to announce it would take up office space at Atria, the seven storey office building next to the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC) developed by the city council.

Brewin said it would consolidate its three city offices, including its investment management suite at Drumsheugh Gardens, its execution-only business, Stocktrade, at 81 George Street, and the business support and risk and regulation departments on Princes Street into 48,000sq ft of Grade A space.

At the time, Marc Wilkinson, head of Brewin Dolphin in Edinburgh, said the consolidation would “give us further room for expansion in the future”.