The Chairmans departure would be the most helpful.It's still...

The Chairmans departure would be the most helpful.

It's still astonishing that his first act as Chair of a company in need of a dramatic overhaul was to significantly bump up his own fees.

It demonstrated a "two for me, one for you" approach toward shareholders (of whom he is meant to represent) and set the tone for which the underperforming investment staff would seek to claw out the maximum remuneration they could, bereft of any consideration for, or alignment with, shareholders. Thus, his petty greed made the one job that was crucial for the business, nearly impossible to pull-off.

To be fair to Andrew Clifford, despite pretty ho hum performance of funds his oversaw, a bizarre dogma on the merits of investing in China, and having no idea how to structure an investment management team (the layers of management he brought in to sit between him and the investment team - who had no idea what their role was), he was at least decent in his conduct toward his partners (shareholders) in the business.