Fund giant Abrdn is close to acquiring Interactive Investor for more than £1.5billion.
The FTSE100 asset manager is locked in advanced talks with the DIY stock-picking site. A source said a deal ‘is getting close’.
An acquisition would turbocharge Abrdn’s plans to sell more products directly to customers – cutting out advisers as middlemen – and would pit it against investment supermarket giant Hargreaves Lansdown.
Sign of the times: An acquisition would turbocharge Abrdn’s plans to sell more products directly to customers
The potential deal, reported by Sky News yesterday, would also put an end to Interactive Investor’s plan to float on the London Stock Exchange.
Richard Wilson, chief executive of Interactive Investor, hinted in an interview with The Mail on Sunday last year that he would consider takeover approaches.
He said big firms keen to invest in the UK would look at businesses like Interactive Investor and say ‘I want one of those’. He added: ‘There is a lot of [profit] margin to go after.’
A deal would lead to an attractive payout to private equity firm JC Flowers, Interactive Investor’s largest shareholder. Interactive Investor is Britain’s second largest investment site after Hargreaves, with more than 400,000 customers.
Abrdn boss Stephen Bird, who joined from Citi bank last year, is attempting to galvanise the fund group since its formation in 2017 from a merger between Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management.
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