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The chief executive of Abrdn has defended the asset manager’s rebranding and said he has no plans to change its name, as the group reported a return to customer inflows last quarter after a difficult few years.
Jason Windsor, who took on the role of chief executive last September, said that the company would stick with the name Abrdn after it was changed from Standard Life Aberdeen under previous boss Stephen Bird in 2021.
“The name is the name, we’re continuing with it,” Windsor said, despite much ridicule over the removal of most of its vowels.
The FTSE 250 asset manager reported £1.2bn of net inflows in its fourth quarter, marking a sharp reversal of the £5.7bn of outflows in the final quarter of 2023. Shares in Abrdn surged nearly 8 per cent in early morning trading, as the inflows were higher than analysts expected.
The group’s total net outflows last year shrunk to £1.1bn from £17.6bn in 2023, in a sign that the asset manager’s fortunes are changing. The inflows and positive market moves boosted Abrdn’s total assets under management to £511bn — an increase of 3 per cent in 2024.
“Net flows at a group level were better than we hoped for,” said Rae Maile, analyst at Panmure Liberum. “Rome was not built in a day, but someone had to break ground sometime. Similarly, Abrdn will not be rebuilt quickly but it has to start putting in some quarters where things are a bit better than not,” he added.
The UK’s midsized fund managers have suffered a torrid few years due to ongoing customer withdrawals from funds, rising costs from regulation and competition from cheap index-tracking funds.
Abrdn had its own problems under Bird too, as the asset manager was twice ejected from the FTSE 100 index and grappled with high costs, leading to job cuts and fund closures.
Windsor said Abrdn had achieved annual savings in excess of £100mn and was on track to deliver its target of at least £150mn by the end of this year.
“We made significant progress in 2024, exceeding our cost transformation targets and also laying the foundations for the new management team to achieve growth and efficiency as we enter 2025,” Windsor said.
He added that the strong performance of Interactive Investor, its “DIY” investment site, should provide “a significant uplift in contribution” to group profits, but added that more needed to be done to tackle outflows from its financial adviser business.
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