Asset management roundup: Aberdeen Standard Life merger completes

Aberdeen Asset Management and Standard Life have completed their merger today to form Standard Life Aberdeen, which manages £583bn (€642bn) of assets.

The move creates the fifth largest European asset manager and 25^th largest in the world, according to IPE’s 2017 Top 400 rankings. This is based on data from the end of 2016.

The new group’s investment business is Aberdeen Standard Investments, while its pensions and savings business is Standard Life. Together the group has assets under administration of £670bn.

Overall Standard Life Aberdeen will have a market capitalisation of over £11bn.

The merger was first announced on 6 March. It was previously announced that the chief executive officers of Aberdeen and Standard Life, Martin Gilbert and Keith Skeoch, respectively, would become co-CEOs of the merged group.

Skeoch said: “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 plc.

“Our leadership team is in place and we have full business readiness from day one.”

The formal launch of Standard Life Aberdeen comes after Prudential, the UK financial services group, announced that it would merge its two main businesses to create a £332bn asset manager.  

JP Morgan to absorb MiFID II research costs

JP Morgan Asset Management has announced that it will cover the cost of external research under the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) rather than passing on the costs to clients.

It said it has not made any changes to its internal research teams as a result of this decision, and that it uses external analyst research “where we believe it can add value to client portfolios”.

In deciding to pay for sell-side research costs itself, JP Morgan is following the likes of Hermes, Kempen, M&G, Vanguard and others. Amundi, Janus Henderson, MAN Group and Schroders have signalled their intention to pass on the cost to clients.