Abrdn announces £150m cost-cutting drive with 500 jobs on the chopping block
UK asset management firm Abrdn has announced it is implementing a new “transformation programme” in a bid to streamline its operations and bring down costs, with 500 job cuts proposed.
Asset management firm Abrdn to cut 500 jobs
The company says the programme “targets an annualised cost reduction of at least £150 million” by the end of 2025. The job cuts are expected to impact group functions and support services across its middle management.
CEO Stephen Bird says the move will seek to “restore our core investments business to a more acceptable level of profitability”.
Abrdn first emerged in 2017 following an all-share merger between Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management agreed in March of that year. The firm has three core businesses: investments, adviser and personal, with the latter including its Interactive Investor platform.
According to its latest trading statement released this week, the firm’s adviser and personal businesses held assets under management and administration (AUMA) of £73.5 billion and £66 billion by year-end 2023, delivering equally “favourable” results.
However, the statement says its investments business, which has around £367 billion in AUMA, failed to perform as well throughout the second half of the year, with the firm citing structural headwinds, geopolitical uncertainty and high inflation as factors.
Recognising that “more needs to be done” to deliver more profitability across all three businesses, Bird says the firm is now “engineering and simplifying our business model”, and expects the changes, which are forecast to incur implementation costs of around £150 million, will “allow us to continue our focus on building a growth business”.
