'Katherine the Great' goes to Morley

STAR fund manager Katherine Garrett-Cox has defected from Aberdeen Asset Management to join Morley, the £100bn fund management arm of the Norwich Union group Aviva.

Garrett-Cox, nicknamed Katherine the Great, who has been on maternity leave for the past eight months following the birth of her third child, is joining Morley as chief investment officer.

She succeeds Gerry Holtham, who retires next year. She will join the Morley board and is expected to earn as much as £1m with bonuses.

Garrett-Cox's relationship with Aberdeen cooled after she was demoted from the main board in a reshuffle at the height of the splitcapital investment trusts scandal last November.

Aberdeen chief executive Martin Gilbert said today: 'I am personally sad to see Katherine go, although I fully respect her decision. We wish her well.' Her post at Aberdeen is being taken over by Anne Richards, who arrived at the group with the recent acquisition of Edinburgh Fund Managers.

Garrett-Cox, 35, made her name as a successful picker of American stocks while at Hill Samuel from 1993 to 2000. 'I'm delighted to be joining Morley,' she said. 'It possesses both the vision and focus required to become a truly world-class fund management group.'

Morley chief executive Keith Jones said Garrett-Cox would build on the foundations put in place by Holtham. 'Clearly Katherine will want to review the investment philosophy and processes, but I would not expect significant changes.'