Poised for the major league

MARTIN Gilbert, vice-chairman of Standard Life Aberdeen, says he was abysmal as a portfolio manager. But few could fault his dealmaking prowess.

Mr Gilbert, co-founder of Aberdeen Asset Management, was an architect of the firm's merger with Standard Life in 2017, creating at that time Europe's second largest asset manager. But that was just the latest coup, albeit the biggest, in a career that has spanned decades of canny dealmaking - 43 deals over 33 years, according to a Financial Times profile. Acquisitions transformed Aberdeen from its origins as a buyout of an investment fund in 1983 with assets under management of about £50 million into a global investment firm with AUM of about £308 billion pre-merger - with particular strength in Asia. The total assets under management and administration of Standard Life Aberdeen (SLA) stood at £568.9 billion as at end-March this year.

With customary self deprecation, Mr Gilbert, 63, who studied law and is a qualified accountant, says he "wasn't that good'' at portfolio management. "I wasn't that passionate about it. I look at my colleagues like Hugh Young. He is passionate about stocks and what he buys. I'm more passionate about business than about stocks. I was the accountant among the three of us (original partners). Inevitably it fell on me to run the business.