Abrdn still cloudy

Abrdn’s (ABDN) half-year results presented investors with all the woes and problems of being a large, listed asset manager, but notably few solutions as to how to turn around its chronic underperformance. Apart from wretched market conditions affecting its investment performance, Abrdn is flummoxed by the simplest of business problems – when revenues fall, so do profits. The complicating factor for a large asset manager is that revenues are also linked to asset flows, and it is impossible to accurately predict how these might pan out.