Aberdeen committed to Asia as it stages profit turnaround

UK-LISTED asset management firm Aberdeen Group has garnered strong institutional inflows from Asian investors, which is helping to boost the firm’s turnaround after years of net outflows and underperformance.

Xavier Meyer, chief executive of the firm’s investments business, said: “We’re having very good momentum on Asian institutional investors these days. They were a significant net contributor to our 2024 numbers, which is not necessarily intuitive because the overall asset management industry in Europe and Asia is still negative for active management.”

In 2021, the group embarked on a rationalisation and cost-cutting programme, as it renamed itself abrdn. Today, those restructuring efforts are bearing fruit, and it has restored the vowels in its name. The group reported pre-tax profits of £251 million (S$434.9 million) for the fiscal year 2024, compared to a loss of £6 million in 2023. Net outflows came to about £6 billion excluding liquidity, compared to an outflow of £13.9 billion previously.