"In Friday's Email of the day (1), a subscriber stated "Aberdeen is a class act."

"Not so in my experience.

"I had a modest holding in the Edinburgh New Dragon IT, invested in Asia, when I was working abroad in the mid 1990s, After some years of poor performance the fund was closed by Aberdeen and, by default, the clients' money was re-invested in a leveraged fund investing in the UK. This fund also performed so badly that it was subsequently closed, with a minimal return of capital to investors. On returning to the UK, my representation to Aberdeen and the Financial Ombudsman that the fair default option should have been to return client money, rather than to re-invest it, fell on deaf ears."

David Fuller's view Thanks for your email and I am sorry to hear of this experience. Presumably the poor performance in Edinburgh New Dragon IT coincided with the Asian Financial Crisis but that does not explain what followed.

Fullermoney's interest in Aberdeen is based on the investment style and performance of Hugh Young, which has certainly been impressive over the last decade. However, in this business managers need ability, integrity and the luck of favourable market trends. It would be nice if we could take the first two for granted although this is not always the case, and market trends will certainly remain variable.