Standard Life Aberdeen Share Discussion Threads

[chinese investor] 18/12/2020 10:10

Will this be the final push to 300p ?

[mcunliffe1] 16/12/2020 15:03

Bit unpleasant there Porsche1945

[spud] 16/12/2020 09:31

Moving nicely this morning!spud

[chinese investor] 16/12/2020 09:15

Pierre,
I'm spending Christmas with my money !

[chinese investor] 16/12/2020 09:07

4p to 300p for a 15% profit !

[pierre oreilly] 16/12/2020 08:47

12p till this thread disappears.Ch, I hope you're not supporting your family with your sla trading profits! Christmas dinner looks like it may be the only meal of the year!.( I assume you're not investing in the millions - if so, 15% every year would be pretty good going).

[mcunliffe1] 15/12/2020 23:42

Which April?

[chinese investor] 15/12/2020 16:18

12p to 300p for a 15% profit !

[spud] 09/12/2020 11:34

Aberdeen Standard Investments buys majority stake in £5bn real estate manager
By Justin Cash 9th December 2020 8:18 am
Aberdeen Standard Investments is acquiring a 60 per cent stake in real estate manager Tritax.



The investment is a “step change” for ASI, the firm says, and is part of a strategy to provide “deep sector specialism” to clients.

Tritax has around £5.1bn in assets under management. It focusses on logistics investments, and runs two main listed industrial logistics funds: Tritax Big Box REIT plc and Tritax EuroBox plc.

ASI has not disclosed how much is paid for its stake in Tritax, but suggests a full acquisition could come down the track.

It describes the 60 per cent holding as an “initial” investment, “with both parties aligned on the future direction and growth trajectory of the business”.

“The structure of the transaction ensures the long-term retention of existing Tritax clients, employees and partners along with the attraction of new ones,” a statement this morning adds.

The deal is set to complete early next year once regulatory approval is received.

Tritax’s management will then head up ASI Real Estate’s global logistics team.

Standard Life Aberdeen chief executive Stephen Bird says: “Our growth strategy is built around our clients’ needs and there’s no doubt that our strong capability in private markets, particularly real estate, will be a differentiator for our business.

“The transaction with Tritax is a compelling strategic fit for our business – it significantly enhances our already strong real estate franchise, in an area of the market which benefits from accelerating trends. It’s a great outcome for us, Tritax and our respective clients.”

While one part of the Standard Life Aberdeen group is looking to acquire, another part – platform Parmenion – remains on the market to be sold.

No further news has emerged from the firm since it was revealed that Parmenion was engaged in sale talks last weekend.

spud

[spud] 04/12/2020 11:57

How will a pivot to passive affect Standard Life’s share price?

Opto
03 Dec 2020, 13:15 GMT



Standard Life Aberdeen’s [SLA.L] share price began the year at 330.50p before falling by almost 50% to 174p on 23 March. As the pandemic spooked its clients, many switched to lower fee passive funds. The lifting of lockdown in the UK and hopes of an economic bounce back helped Standard Life’s share price hit 281.10p on 8 June, but the stock slumped again, hitting 208.90p on 25 September after disappointing first-half results in early August.

Standard Life’s share price continued to plateau even after new boss Stephen Bird arrived in September, reaching just 257.20p on 12 November.

In an interview with Bloomberg on 12 November, Bird said he planned to build a portfolio of passive products in order to stem investor outflows and respond to growing demand for index investing. Ultimately, the hope will be that this can, in turn, boost Standard Life’s share price.

“Passive is an essential component of a full solution provider. We are screening for which technology, which people, which capabilities can help us get there,” Bird said. “An ideal active-passive split would be 70/30. If you stay as an old traditional asset class asset manager, you will be extinct.”

As of 30 November, Standard Life’s share price climbed 6.8% to 274.80p.

Reversing course

Despite only 32% of its investments lagging their benchmark compared with 40% last year, Standard Life Aberdeen reported a drop in pre-tax profit to £195m down from £280m. Fee-based revenue of £706m was down from £815m.

Its assets under management and administration dropped 6% to £512bn, hit by Lloyds Banking Group’s [LLOY] decision to switch £25bn of investments to rival Schroders.

Keith Skeoch, in his last results as chief executive of Standard Life, painted a gloomy picture. “The outlook for markets is tough. I don’t think this recovery without a vaccine is going to be V-shaped, it’s going to be W-shaped,” he said.

"The outlook for markets is tough. I don't think this recovery without a vaccine is going to be V-shaped, it's going to be W-shaped" - Keith Skeoch, former Standard Life CEO

Following the statements from Bird, however, it is expected that Standard Life will build up more index linked exchange-traded funds, buy ETF technology and boost investments in assets such as infrastructure.

Some analysts are sceptical about the chances of success for Standard Life’s share price.

“It will be quite a challenge to achieve this,” Numis Securities analyst David McCann told Financial News. “Bearing in mind that BlackRock [BLK], Vanguard [VOO] and State Street [STT] have a 20-30 plus year head start, and certain European competitors like Legal & General [LGEN], DWS [DWS], HSBC [HSBA] and Amundi [AMUN] also are well experienced in this market, it is really hard to see how this might work.”

Brand power

Prior to Bird’s comments, Standard Life had received a Sell recommendation from five analysts rating the stock, with five offering a Hold rating and three a Buy, according to Marketbeat. The average target for Standard Life’s share price is 253.33p.

Barclays rated it Underweight and gave it a 240p price target. Royal Bank of Canada rated it an Underperform and gave it a 225p price target.

JPMorgan has an Overweight rating and a 270p target on Standard Life’s share price, stating that it has room to reduce its dividend payout in 2020/21 to a 7% yield — still leaving it ahead of the 3.5% average for FTSE 100 stocks — and to make acquisitions in its investment unit.

There is also hope that Standard Life’s share price will gain from investing in wealth management services.

“[Standard Life Aberdeen] is the fourth-largest wealth management business in the UK. It has failed to capitalise on this during the past few years,” Rupert Hargreaves wrote in The Motley Fool. “Wealth management can offer higher profits than fund management. Further, Standard Life is one of the most trusted financial brands in the country, which should give it an edge over competitors.”

He added that the combination of its dividend yield and potential earnings expansion from new growth initiatives means Standard Life’s share price could produce large total returns in the years ahead.

Market cap
£6.302bn
Operating margin (TTM)
53.49%
EPS (TTM)
-39.80
Quarterly revenue growth (YoY)
-19.00%
Standard Life's share price vitals, Yahoo Finance, 3 December 2020

spud

[chinese investor] 03/12/2020 10:42

14p to 300p for a 15% profit !

[spud] 03/12/2020 08:12

Standard Life Aberdeen plc Sale of Shares in HDFC LifeSource: UK Regulatory (RNS & others)TIDMSLARNS Number : 4129HStandard Life Aberdeen plc03 December 2020Standard Life Aberdeen plc ("the Company")Sale of shares in HDFC Life Insurance Company Limited ("HDFC Life") by Standard Life (Mauritius Holdings) 2006 Limited ("SLMH06")The Company announces that on Thursday 3 December 2020, SLMH06, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company, sold 27,772,684(1) shares in HDFC Life (the "Shares") on the National Stock Exchange of India Limited and the Bombay Stock Exchange Limited.The Shares were sold at an average price of Rs 619.14(1) which will result in SLMH06 receiving approximately Rs 17,032m (GBP172m(2) ), net of taxes and expenses, from the sale. The Company intends to use the proceeds for general corporate purposes.The Shares sold constituted 1.37% of the paid-up, issued equity share capital of HDFC Life and SLMH06's remaining shareholding in HDFC Life is now 8.89%, based on the paid-up, issued equity share capital. Based on the current share price of Rs 647.35(3) , the value of this remaining shareholding would be approximately Rs 116bn (GBP1.2bn(2) ).It is also noted that SLMH06's remaining 8.89% shareholding in HDFC Life is locked in until end March 2021 and a shareholding below 10% will no longer provide SLMH06 with the right to nominate a Director to the board of HDFC Lifespud

[mcunliffe1] 30/11/2020 16:16

Replace all the money they spent on share buy-back :-) :-) :-)

[lippy4] 30/11/2020 15:59

so what are thy going to do with all this money they are going to get with the sell offs???

[spud] 30/11/2020 11:27

Standard Life Aberdeen to offload Parmenion advisory arm



New CEO Stephen Bird begins reshaping FTSE 100 investment group

CEO Stephen Bird: ‘We need to simplify our offering to financial advisers’ © Standard Life Aberdeen

Standard Life Aberdeen has decided to offload one of its advisory businesses, as new chief executive Stephen Bird sets about putting his mark on the FTSE 100 investment group.

The Edinburgh-headquartered company plans to announce an auction for Parmenion on the London Stock Exchange as early as Monday morning.

Mr Bird replaced former chief executive Keith Skeoch this autumn and has already put in place plans to take apart the £512bn asset manager that was formed by the megamerger of Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management three years ago.

Since that deal the share price has fallen more than 45 per cent, while the business has been pummeled by outflows and replaced by competitor Schroders as the UK’s largest listed fund company by assets.

“Since my appointment in September, I have been intensely focused on how we develop our strategy, take out cost and complexity, and reconfigure our business around our key growth vectors — our investments, adviser and direct to customer businesses,” Mr Bird said on Sunday.

The sale of Parmenion, which was first reported by Sky News, follows comments made by Mr Bird this month to Bloomberg that he was considering M&A deals.

Parmenion is a hybrid investment platform and discretionary fund manager, which provides ready-made investment portfolios for financial advisers to sell to their clients. Yet its £6.5bn of assets under management is dwarfed by SLA’s other two main investment platforms, Wrap and Elevate, which collectively have £61.2bn of assets.

“Parmenion is a fantastic and highly regarded business but we need to simplify our offering to financial advisers,” added Mr Bird, a former Citigroup banker who was recruited by chairman Douglas Flint. “We will focus on our two adviser platforms, Wrap and Elevate, which operate on the same core technology.

“In the coming months we will be simplifying our model by merging their underlying technology, while retaining differentiated propositions for advisers.”

Aberdeen Asset Management, then run by Martin Gilbert, bought Parmenion for £50m in 2016, before it merged with Standard Life a year later. At the time, Parmenion produced around £10m a year in revenue on flat profits.

Based on a similar 5 times revenue multiple, Parmenion would be valued at around £100m today, according to research by Numis Securities this summer, although buyers may be prepared to pay more for the business’s technology.

Fenchurch Advisory Partners has been retained to oversee the sale.

spud

[mcunliffe1] 30/11/2020 09:38

A few days ago a professional investment platform named Old Mutual undertook a massive online update. We customers/users were repeatedly warned of the event and the date. I logged on today, post change, to find everything working as perfectly as normal.

This morning, as I do most days, I attempted to logon to my Standard Life pension platform to find a stark message displayed warning me that I had been blocked. I should phone [phone] and quote a reference number that has 19 digits.

Once connected the taped preamble told me how their opening hours not vary to 'protect their employees and their families'. Basically, they've shortened their access hours. Now, I may be missing something here, but if they EXTENDED their hours they could have a lesser number of people present at any one time. However, I finally spoke with a pleasant lady (working from home I suspect given the background noise) who informed me of a system update over the weekend.

I was sent an email to permit me to change my password (why?) but played along. Clicked the link, entered a new password, received an email confirming ths change and then tried to logon once more.

Same problem. BLOCKED mate.

Ring again, wait longer as it's now busy (surprise, surprise) to be told they had problems and I should wait until later in the day when I.T. hope to have it fixed.

These kind of simple, stupid mistakes reflect badly on a company hoping to expand into the online, tracker, big-league investment arena.

Remember Old Mutual provided advanced warning of a pending update. SLA will probably not even acknowledge they've bodged their update.

[mcunliffe1] 30/11/2020 09:37

A few days ago a professional investment platform named Old Mutual undertook a massive online update. We customers/users were repeatedly warned of the event and the date. I logged on today, post change, to find everything working as perfectly as normal.

This morning, as I do most days, I attempted to logon to my Standard Life pension platform to find a stark message displayed warning me that I had been blocked. I should phone [phone] and quote a reference number that has 19 digits.

Once connected the taped preamble told me how their opening hours not vary to 'protect their employees and their families'. Basically, they've shortened their access hours. Now, I may be missing something here, but if they EXTENDED their hours they could have a lesser number of people present at any one time. However, I finally spoke with a pleasant lady (working from home I suspect given the background noise) who informed me of a system update over the weekend.

I was sent an email to permit me to change my password (why?) but played along. Clicked the link, entered a new password, received an email confirming ths change and then tried to logon once more.

Same problem. BLOCKED mate.

Ring again, wait longer as it's now busy (surprise, surprise) to be told they had problems and I should wait until later in the day when I.T. hope to have it fixed.

These kind of simple, stupid mistakes reflect badly on a company hoping to expand into the online, tracker, big-league investment arena.

Remember Old Mutual provided advanced warning of a pending update. SLA will probably not even acknowledge they've bodged their update.

[chinese investor] 27/11/2020 14:42

....but wait a min.....

[mcunliffe1] 26/11/2020 15:00

30p to 300p Chinese Investor. Heading in the wrong direction again.

[boozey] 25/11/2020 22:07

The CEO bought around £1M of stock about a month ago around £2.20 a share. He timed it nicely.

[spud] 25/11/2020 15:26

Phoenix in talks over sale of European business

Life insurer Phoenix Group has confirmed it is considering a sale of its European businesses after receiving expressions of interest from a number of potential buyers.

The Edinburgh-headquartered company said there was “no certainty that a transaction will be achieved” but an announcement would be made in due course if appropriate.

Phoenix is an established participant in the European life insurance market, with operations across Ireland, Germany and the UK offshore savings market.

Phoenix bought Standard Life Assurance for £3.28bn two years ago following the merger of Standard Life and asset manager Aberdeen Asset Management in 2017.

As part of the deal Standard Life Aberdeen acquired a shareholding of just under 20 per cent of Phoenix Group.

In August this year Phoenix restructured the UK business around five divisions to drive pensions growth.

spud

[spud] 25/11/2020 15:20

Standard Life Aberdeen price target raised to 297 GBp from 262 GBp at Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley analyst Anil Sharma raised the firm's price target on Standard Life Aberdeen to 297 GBp from 262 GBp and keeps an Equal Weight rating on the shares.

spud