Standard Life Aberdeen’s parody-like rebranding to abrdn may have been widely mocked by commentators this year, but the group’s dismal performance has given investors little to laugh about. The asset manager has been hemorrhaging assets in recent years, and that’s even if you exclude the huge loss of its Lloyds Banking mandate to Schroders and BlackRock three years ago.
Investors were — rightly — less than enthused by some signs of progress at the half-year mark. Even though adjusted operating profits for the first half were ahead of consensus forecasts, up just over half on the same time last year, shares in the FTSE 100 group slid by about 2.3 per cent after the results. Perhaps investors have realised that they may need to
