Baron Bruno Schroder is 74 and his only child shows no sign of wanting to run the family business. That alone has been enough to set tongues wagging afresh about the future of Schroders.

Add in titbits like the arrival of activist US fund manager Harris Associates on the shareholder register and the reallocation of executive directors’ responsibilities last month and you have a recipe for rampant speculation.

It was Harris’s David Herro who took on that institution of the advertising world, Saatchi & Saatchi, and won. Could he orchestrate a similar shake-up at Schroders?

Not without the agreement of the Schroder and Mallinckrodt families, who control the voting shares. But it is not impossible that Baron Bruno himself might be willing to contemplate a change of direction.

Mischievous competitors who describe Schroders as a basketcase are overegging things. Under chief executive Michael Dobson profits have been lifted each year for five years and reached a healthy £290 million last year. But these should be glorious times for any fund management house. Schroders, with its unparallelled franchise and vast cash pile, stands accused of failing to capitalise on its strengths. Its share price is still well below its 2000 level.

It timed its exit from traditional merchant banking to perfection, selling the corporate finance arm to Citigroup just before markets tanked in 2000. But it failed to use the proceeds to make major acquisitions when asset management companies were cheap in 2003-2005.

Rising markets have a near-alchemical effect on asset managers, whose fees are linked to share prices, especially when they gear up with debt.

Schroders, braked by its cash mountain, has looked a plodder beside more highly geared rivals.

Hellman & Friedman, the private equity group, has showed how it is possible to conjure up gold. It has just paid itself a special dividend of more than the entire purchase price of Gartmore, just 13 months after buying it.

These are benign times for fund managers. There might not be a more lucrative moment for the family to sell.

Times Recommends

• Minister in talks with Saudis to protect creditors
• Premier Inn hits back in £29-a-room row
• Bankers hit back at 'populist' bonus supertax