PROFESSOR GEORGE Stout, a former director and joint manager of the Dundee-based investment company the Alliance Trust, has died. He was 81.

Dundee-born Mr Stout was educated at the city’s Morgan Academy and Edinburgh University, from which he graduated with a first-class honours degree in economics and political science in 1949.

After National Service with the education branch of the RAF, he joined the Alliance Trust in 1951 and embarked on a distinguished career which also saw him take on a role as non-executive director of Fleming Claverhouse Investment Trust.

He was also a visiting professor of Business Finance at Dundee University, contributed numerous articles to leading Scottish newspapers and journals, and was widely recognised as an expert in the Scottish investment trust movement.

Mr Stout’s hobbies included gardening, golf, music and photography and he was also a past chairman of Dundee Round Table and a past president of Dundee Curling Club.

He was indulging his love of golf, which once saw him manage the remarkable achievement of scoring two holes-in-one in one round, when he died suddenly on the practice ground at Carnoustie on Monday.

Mr Stout, who lived in Monifieth, is survived by his wife Dorothy, daughters Susan, Gillian and Jennifer, son Bruce and seven grandchildren.