Half of asset managers reporting on their gender pay gap say the gulf between male and female staff is wider, despite pressure on the industry to take on more women and support their careers.
Companies whose figures have deteriorated over the past year include Newton Investment Management and Columbia Threadneedle, both led by women in the UK, and State Street Global Advisors, which unveiled its Fearless Girl statue, promoting female empowerment, opposite the London Stock Exchange last month.
While many asset managers’ efforts to close the gap went backwards, the Investment Association, the trade body, said the average difference was 29.9 per cent, down from 30.3 per cent, for those groups that had reported so far.
But Bev Shah, chief executive of City Hive, which promotes diversity in the industry, described the progress made as a “magician’s trick”.
“Promoting and inflating pay internally is only a short-term fix,” she said. “Tackling the real issues that have created the gender pay gap are too structural and deep rooted. Companies need to acknowledge that the solution is a multiyear if not decade-long task.”
The fund industry’s lack of gender diversity was exposed last year when companies made their first report on how much they pay male and female staff under a new rule that applies to UK companies with more than 250 staff.
The average median pay gap across asset managers last year was 28.5 per cent, meaning women took home £71.50 for every £100 earned by men. This compared with a national average pay gap of 9.7 per cent and a financial services pay gap of 22.2 per cent.
UK companies have until April 4 to provide the latest data. As FTfm went to press on Friday, just under half of investment groups had yet to publish their numbers.
The IA said fund managers were investing in initiatives that would make the industry more diverse and inclusive. “Closing the gap was never going to happen overnight but asset managers are fully committed to closing the gender pay gap in the industry,” it added.
Newton, the £46.7bn fund group owned by BNY Mellon, saw its gender pay gap widen from 20 per cent — which had been among the smallest for investment companies — to 34 per cent, towards the higher end.
The company said this was due to a small number of high-earning women leaving the company and several senior women taking maternity leave in 2018.
“Newton has been undertaking a number of initiatives to tackle the issue of a gender pay gap,” the company said. “Results are not going to be visible immediately, but we believe that these are important initiatives that will help us resolve this issue.”
Columbia Threadneedle, the $430bn investment group, reported a 31.3 per cent pay gap this year, up from 25.4 per cent last year.
“The reality is that women hold fewer senior positions at our firm and in the industry, including in higher-paying areas such as investments and front-line sales,” it said. “We are working hard to address the imbalance in these areas, understanding it will take time.”
Michelle Scrimgeour, Columbia Threadneedle’s chief executive for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, is due to leave the company for Legal & General Investment Management in the summer.
State Street Global Advisors, which manages $2.5tn globally, had the second smallest gap last year of 11.8 per cent but this grew to 17.7 per cent. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
