Suisse's £36bn funds come to Aberdeen

Published on Saturday 27 June 2009 13:54

ABERDEEN Asset Management will this week complete its £250 million takeover of key funds from Credit Suisse, turning the company into one of the biggest independent asset managers in Europe.

The deal, announced in December, will see 36 billion of funds transfer from the Swiss firm to Aberdeen. The Asia-Pacific funds moved across in the spring and will be followed on Tuesday by the remaining business.

Completion of the equity-financed deal will take total assets under management to more than 130bn against 100m when Aberdeen launched in 1983.

It plans to merge a number of its newly acquired funds into its own. From 1 July the Credit Suisse US Systematic Alpha Equity fund will be called Aberdeen US Alpha Equity and will be headed by Shahreza Yusof, the head of US equities. It is likely that it will eventually be merged into the Aberdeen American Growth fund.

The management of the Credit Suisse Orient fund will be handed to Aberdeen Asia Pacific Equity team.

While attention remains focused on integrating the Credit Suisse business, Aberdeen is looking at further acquisition opportunities to take advantage of current low market valuations.

The company has made it known that it is keen to expand into the United States. It has been linked with a $450m bid for Delaware Group, a firm with $120bn under management, which is being sold by Lincoln Financial Group to raise cash and is trying to get bailout money from the US authorities.