A Scottish fund management firm has distributed £21.7 million to four executives despite a fall in its revenue and assets under management.

The highest remuneration package at Edinburgh-based Walter Scott & Partners for the 2022 calendar year was £7.9 million, paid to to an individual who was not named.

Jane Henderson is the managing director while Roy Leckie is responsible for investment and client service. Charlie Macquaker is the investment director and Jimmy Smith heads investment operations. Documents filed at Companies House show Smith resigned as a director on 30 June.

Weaker equity markets were blamed for a 20% slump in assets under management to £69.2 billion while revenue declined 6% to £290m. Pre-tax profit fell just 0.2% to £210.2m.

Alex Hammond-Chambers, the chairman, described it as “one of the toughest years” for investment management in the firm’s history with the war in Ukraine, rising interest rates and inflation impacting financial markets.

The business was founded by Walter Scott, a physicist turned financier, in 1983 and it sold to the Bank of New York Mellon in 2006 in a deal reported to have been worth £400 million.

After stripping out the directors’ costs the payroll for the remaining 164 workers was about £48.7m, an average of close to £295,000.