The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Merger creates Scottish finance giant
The £11 billion mega-merger of Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management has been completed.
Shares in the newly enlarged group, which immediately becomes Europe’s second-biggest fund manager, began trading in London yesterday.
A stock exchange announcement earlier confirmed the deal’s conclusion, which came just days after court approval for the merger last week.
Co-chief executive Keith Skeoch described the combination as the “beginning of a new chapter” in the companies’ history, and confirmed that the new entity will trade as Standard Life Aberdeen.
“Today marks the culmination of many months of hard work and preparation by our business and the beginning of a new chapter in our history as Standard Life Aberdeen.
“Our leadership team is in place and we have full business readiness from day one,” he said.
The enlarged company will be jointly headed up by Mr Skeoch and Aberdeen Asset Management chief executive Martin Gilbert.
The combined entity holds around £670 billion of assets under management.
The merger, which was agreed in March, is targeting cost savings of £200 million a year.
As part of the restructuring, around 800 jobs are expected to be lost over a three-year period from a global workforce of 9,000.
“As ever our priority remains the delivery of strong investment performance and the highest level of client service,” Mr Gilbert said.
“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.”
Overall, Standard Life Aberdeen will have offices in 50 cities around the globe and service clients in 80 countries.
Shares in Standard Life Aberdeen closed up 3.2% at 424 pence.