Lifetime accolade for asset management guru Alan Steel

The founder of a Linlithgow-based wealth management firm that now looks after some £1.25 billion in client assets has picked up a top lifetime achievement accolade.

Alan Steel, chairman of Alan Steel Asset Management, was presented with the coveted WeDO Scotland Lifetime Achievement Award for Entrepreneurship by fellow entrepreneur and founding director of Macintyres of Edinburgh Jewellers, Gaynor Turner.

Steel founded his eponymous asset management business in 1975 and now employs 43 staff. A well-known cynic of the UK financial services industry, Steel has written numerous columns in national newspapers, and predicted the beginning of the current equity bull market back in March 2009.

Steel said: “Awards of this type are as rare as a Scottish summer, so I’m very fortunate to have received it.”

He added: “I actually started out as an actuary, but I failed the medical when they found out I had a sense of humour.”