Scottish Financial Giants Complete Merger

Brian Baglow

15 August 2017, 11.56am

Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management have completed a £11 billion merger to create Standard Life Aberdeen, the second largest fund manager in Europe.

The merger between the two financial companies, which was agreed in March, creates a unified company overseeing £670 billion of assets worldwide.

Aberdeen shareholders now own 33.3% of the combined company, with Standard Life shareholders owning the remaining 66.7% of Standard Life Aberdeen.

The new company’s shares rose 1.2% when markets opened on Monday 14th August, Standard Life Aberdeen’s first day of trading.

Standard Life Aberdeen now has offices in 50 cities around the world, working with clients in 80 countries.

Keith Skeoch and Martin Gilbert have been named co-chief executives of Standard Life Aberdeen. Mr Skeoch, the former chief executive at Standard Life, will manage the day-to-day running of the new company. Mr Gilbert, the former chief executive of Aberdeen, will be responsible for external affairs.

Mr Skeoch, said the merger was: “the culmination of many months of hard work” and “the beginning of a new chapter”.

Mr Gilbert added: “The merger deepens and broadens our investment capabilities, and gives us a stronger and more diverse range of investment management skills as well as significant scale across asset classes and geographies.”

As a result of the merger around 800 jobs are expected to be lost over the next three years from the company’s global workforce of 9,000. The company says it expects ‘natural turnover’ to account for some reductions, while steps will be taken to minimise compulsory redundancies.