Standard Life Aberdeen chief executive Keith Skeoch is stepping down, as the UK’s largest listed asset manager revamps its leadership following the completion of its merger three years ago.
Mr Skeoch, one of the architects of the £11bn combination of Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management in 2017, will be replaced by Stephen Bird, a former executive at US bank Citigroup.
Mr Bird will take over as chief executive designate on July 1, SLA said in a statement on Tuesday. He spent 21 years with Citi, most recently as head of global consumer banking until he stepped down last year.
The abrupt shake-up in SLA’s top ranks comes as the £490bn-in-assets fund group seeks to move on from the fraught debate over its leadership that has dogged it since 2017.
A person close to the situation described Mr Bird as “a completely new broom with no tribal alliances to SLA’s heritage brands”. A newcomer to fund management, Mr Bird had been in the running to take the helm at HSBC before the bank confirmed Noel Quinn into the chief executive role this year.
SLA appointed executive search firm MWM Consulting to find a successor to Mr Skeoch at the start of 2020.
Mr Skeoch, who headed up Standard Life for two years before the deal, initially served as co-chief executive of the merged company alongside Aberdeen’s Martin Gilbert.
However, the cumbersome co-leadership structure was unpopular with shareholders and was scrapped after Douglas Flint became SLA chairman. Mr Skeoch assumed sole leadership of the company last year, with Mr Gilbert stepping back.
Sir Douglas said Mr Skeoch had “guided the company through its transformation arising from the merger with Aberdeen Asset Management”. However, the post-coronavirus world brought with it “a wide range of fresh longer-term opportunities and challenges that are best taken forward with leadership succession settled”.
He added that Mr Bird’s experience in helping businesses to harness digital technology and guiding them through periods of significant change meant he was “well placed to build on the strong foundations we have at SLA”.
Amin Rajan, chief executive of consultancy Create-Research, said the appointment indicated “a pivot towards two key future growth engines in global asset management, retail clients and Asia”.
The 2017 merger was aimed at staunching outflows and scaling up the two midsize asset managers to help them to compete against passive funds. But the results have been disappointing. Outflows have continued, amplified by Lloyds Banking Group’s decision to end its relationship with the fund manager and an exodus of investors from the once-popular Gars absolute return product.
However, excluding its lost business with Lloyds, SLA reported marginal net inflows in the first four months of the year, which it described as an “encouraging signal”.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiP2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmZ0LmNvbS9jb250ZW50LzEzMjk1Zjk1LWUxZDUtNGU5NC1iZTM2LTQ4MTU3ZGI3NjQ5NNIBP2h0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmZ0LmNvbS9jb250ZW50LzEzMjk1Zjk1LWUxZDUtNGU5NC1iZTM2LTQ4MTU3ZGI3NjQ5NA?oc=5
2020-06-30 10:06:22Z
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