UK stockbroker Panmure Gordon wants to expand its asset management arm and may consider small acquisitions, its chief executive Tim Linacre has told Reuters. QInvest, Qatar's largest investment bank, bought 44 per cent of Panmure earlier this year.

Mr Linacre said his firm historically had an asset management business that had undergone several restructurings over the years as Panmure went through a series of ownership changes, which included being owned by Lazard and WestLB.

According to Mr Linacre, the Qataris shared his view that fund management would be a core business for Panmure in the future.

Speaking of his firm’s recently-set-up asset management division in Nyon, near Geneva, Mr Linacre said: "I would not be surprised if in the next couple of years, that [the office in Nyon] was a base for a reasonably sized asset management business. If you're going to be in the asset management business, you've got to have critical mass. You've got to have well over a billion [pounds; about $1.7 billion], probably heading on for 10 billion [of assets under management]."