The firm has been through a rough time. Investors fled its Absolute Return Bond Fund, which at one point was managed by Tim Haywood, who was suspended in 2018, and later dismissed by the firm, for misconduct.

GAM Holding, the Zurich-listed investment business battling to recover after a senior manager was ousted two years ago, yesterday reported that its assets under management stood at SFr119.4 billion ($130.4 billion) as at the end of June, rising from SFr112.1 billion at the end of March. 

Within the investment management arm of GAM, AuM totalled SFr35.5 billion from SFr35.7 billion as at end-March. At the private labelling business, AuM rose to SFr83.9 billion from SFr76.4 billion at the end of March.

Net fee and commission income fell to SFr123.8 million from SFr171.1 million at the end of June from a year ago because of “substantially lower” levels of investment management AuM.

The firm logged an underlying pre-tax of SFr2.0 million, compared with a profit of SFr2.1 million in H1 2019. On an IFRS reporting basis, GAM suffered a net loss of SFr390.1 million. The loss was mostly caused by the impairment of legacy goodwill of SFr373.7 million, stemming from the acquisition of GAM by Julius Baer in 2005 and UBS in 1999.

The firm has been through a rough time. Investors fled its Absolute Return Bond Fund, which at one point was managed by Tim Haywood, who was suspended in 2018, and later dismissed by the firm, for misconduct. The saga highlights how rapidly a listed fund management business can be hit by the woes of a flagship fund or set of funds. In 2018, GAM Holding chief executive Alex Friedman, who had been a senior figure at UBS, resigned.