Aberdeen Jumps After Report Company Is Looking for a Buyer

Aberdeen Asset Management head of distribution John Brett is to step down and take on a non-executive role with its Life and Pensions business and could consider “additional potential roles”.

Citing “people familiar with the process” the paper said the slump in emerging markets had put intense pressure on Aberdeen and that Gilbert, the firm’s 60-year-old founder and chief executive, needed a succession plan.

He also rejected the suggestion that Gilbert was looking for a successor given he was now 60 and said he was determined to continue running the business for “some years yet”.

Martin Gilbert, the CEO of Aberdeen Asset Management, is understood to have made informal approaches to a number of rivals in recent months.

The Financial Times says analysts believe there will be plenty of interest in Aberdeen from United Kingdom and institutional fund businesses.

It named Credit Suisse and Deutsche as possible buyers, along with private equity firms KKR, Blackstone and Warburg Pincus.

“Selling now would be an admission of failure”, Peter Lenardos, an analyst at RBC Europe Ltd.in London, wrote in a note to clients. Lenardos, who has an underperform rating on the stock, said he doesn’t believe there’s a sales process under way.

Although he said that Aberdeen was relatively weak now, he said it was unlikely that it would seek a sale from such a position.

Last month, a newly created Aberdeen subsidiary secured a business licence from China that will enable it to set up an office in Shanghai under a pilot free-trade scheme in a move that underscored Aberdeen’s commitment to Asian expansion.

If Gilbert is seeking a buyer, it would mark a rapid capitulation after completing the £550million purchase of Scottish Widows Investment Partnership from Lloyds past year.

These included platform and discretionary fund manager Parmenion and USA private equity firm Flag Capital.