Standard Life Aberdeen's (SLA) transformation to fully-fledged asset manager has taken a giant leap forward through a deal to offload its "capital-intensive" insurance business to closed life assurance book consolidator Phoenix (PHNX) for an aggregate £3.2bn. It will result in the disposal of businesses including UK workplace, mature retail and Europe, representing £159bn in assets under management.
Recently-merged SLA will retain its UK retail adviser platforms Elevate and Wrap, as well as Parmenion. That’s a sensible move – assets under management by these divisons increased by more than a fifth to £58bn last year, with UK retail leading the way in new business gains with net inflows of £6.4bn. Auto-enrolment boosted regular premiums at the workplace business, although net inflows were slightly lower than the prior year at £1.4bn.
In contrast, Standard Aberdeen Investments suffered net outflows of £37.3bn, primarily via equities and multi-asset allocations. Its flagship Global Absolute Return Strategies product lost £10.7bn in assets, as weaker investment performance pushed up redemptions, but sentiment towards equities improved, helping reduce outflows by around 40 per cent. Overall assets under administration at the investment arm were only down by around £5bn at £576bn.
Analysts at Numis expect adjusted pre-tax profit of £1.14bn during the 12 months to December 2018, giving EPS of 31.7p (from £1.04bn and 28.9p in 2017).
| STANDARD LIFE ABERDEEN (SLA) | ||||
| ORD PRICE: | 382.4p | MARKET VALUE: | £11.4bn | |
| TOUCH: | 382.2-382.4p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 449p | LOW: 349p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 5.6% | PE RATIO: | 13 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 289p* | ASSETS UNDER ADMINISTRATION: | £655bn | |
| Year to 31 Dec | Turnover (£bn) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p)* |
| 2016 | 18.7 | 789 | 18.7 | 19.82 |
| 2017 | 17.0 | 964 | 29.8 | 21.3 |
| % change | -9 | +22 | +59 | +7 |
| Ex-div: | 19 Apr | |||
| Payment: | 30 May | |||
| *Includes intangible assets of £4.5bn, or 152p a share | ||||
