John Dodd and Mark Tyndall, the senior members of Artemis Asset Management's founding quartet, have netted more than £50m apiece from the sale of their stakes to majority owner Fortis after efforts to find an alternative shareholder foundered.

Belgian-Dutch bank Fortis paid £317.2m for management's 32.9% holding in the Edinburgh-based investment boutique, valuing the whole business at £964m, but Artemis management yesterday said the deal was "not our preferred option".

Filings at Companies House show that Tyndall, Artemis's chief executive, and Dodd, who was recently hit by a £107,000 civil penalty after illegal pesticides that could have threatened birds of prey were found in bait on his Glenogil estate in Angus, own stakes of more than 5% each in the company, giving them upwards of £50m apiece from yesterday's deal.

Derek Stuart and Lindsay Whitelaw, who co-founded the company with them in 1997, picked up £26m and £19m respectively. Artemis declined to confirm the figures yesterday.

Big pay-outs have also gone to high-profile fund managers Philip Wolstencroft, formerly of Merrill Lynch and Adrian Frost, ex-Deutsche Asset Management, who both joined the company in 1999. They received £24m and £18m respectively.

Company chairman Hamish McLeod Grossart, nephew of Sir Angus Grossart founder of investment bank Noble Grossart, got £5m in return for his 2.5 million shares.

Chief operating officer Mark Murray received £11m and fixed interest manager James Foster, who joined three years ago from F&C, reaped £2m.

The pay-outs were triggered by a change of control clause following Fortis's acquisition of previous majority shareholder, Dutch bank ABN Amro last October.

Fortis has long indicated its desire to sell its holding in Artemis, which has assets under management of £14.8bn.

Its own financial pressures forced the company to sell stakes to the Belgian, Dutch and Luxembourg governments in an 11bn (£8.7bn) rescue deal on Sunday and it is still in a vulnerable position after plans to sell assets to China's Ping An Insurance and Deutsche Bank fell apart yesterday.

But months of talks failed to find an alternative shareholder for Artemis.

Artemis management yesterday indicated it is still exploring ways of regaining a stake in the business.

Artemis communications manager Nick Wells said of the deal: "This is not our preferred option."

He added: "What has caused the real issue is the turbulence of markets. If you were thinking of doing a deal you would probably step back at the moment."

Wells said that Fortis had promised to preserve Artemis's "entrepreneurial environment" and has told its management they will be "fully involved" in the discussion on the future of the company.

He said the company had held discussions with several "interested parties" over the past few months.

Among the names linked to an offer were US fund managers Federated Investors, Franklin Templeton and Putnam.

But he said that the change of control clause had to be exercised within a year of ABN Amro's takeover by Fortis, prompting yesterday's move.

He added: "There is more of the story to come. When it will come I don't know. We would expect to see the market in a more relaxed state first. We are talking months rather than weeks."

He indicated that management wanted to regain their stake in the company.

"Our ideal position really is the same as we had with ABN Amro where we have a well established shareholder with an equity interest that lets us get on with things. That has worked extremely well."

He added: "Fortis fully understands that the value of Artemis is as an intact operation."

The current board structure with three Artemis managers, and three representatives from Fortis will remain. He said no redundancies were planned.