LONDON, UK: abrdn Plc plans to acquire 100 per cent of the UK’s leading subscription-based investment platform interactive investor Limited for £1.49 billion, a bourse filing said.
abrdn and interactive investor have a shared vision of the growth and development of the wealth market and a commitment to being the customer champion.
This acquisition will significantly enhance our presence and growth opportunities within a fast-growing and attractive market.
Stephen Bird, Chief Executive Officer of abrdn plc commented: “This is a unique opportunity and a transformative step in delivering our growth strategy. interactive investor is the UK’s number one subscription-based investing platform with a powerful reputation as a consumer champion.
abrdn’s scale, resources, and shared vision will enable interactive investor to grow confidently and expand its leadership position in the UK’s attractive savings and wealth market. I am delighted that Richard Wilson and his team will continue to lead interactive investor.”
Richard Wilson, Chief Executive Officer of interactive investor Limited commented: “This is an exciting new chapter in our history and means that we can focus exclusively on serving those who matter most: our customers.
We will have access to abrdn’s additional capabilities across research, advice and wealth management services, and we will benefit from being part of one of Europe’s largest investment and wealth management firms, with a vision and values closely aligned to our own.
Our management will remain the same, and the same extraordinary team will continually develop our service and technology, while maintaining our subscription pricing, our whole of market choice and the same campaigning spirit and editorial independence.”
interactive investor is the leading subscription-based direct investing platform in the UK, with over 400,000 customers, and a meaningful proportion of high-value customers based on AUA per customer.
Its open-architecture, digitally-enabled, data-centric model and technology platform drives strong customer engagement, activity and acquisition, through data analytics, customer personalisation and high user functionality.
The acquisition will be funded in cash from abrdn’s capital resources. Following the Acquisition, abrdn’s capital position will remain strong with an indicative pro forma regulatory capital surplus (post IFPR) of c.£0.5 billion and in addition c.£2.5 billion in value from our listed investments. We intend to issue Additional Tier 1 debt of c.£200 million to optimise our capital structure.
The acquisition improves abrdn’s dividend cover. The Board intends to maintain the total dividend at 14.6 pence per annum until it is covered at least 1.5 times by adjusted capital generation, at which point the Board will seek to grow the dividend in line with its assessment of the underlying medium term growth in profitability.
Leave a Reply