LONDON (Reuters) -Abdrn CEO Stephen Bird has stepped down, the British fund manager said on Friday, after a turbulent four-year tenure marked by deep outflows of client cash and a controversial rebrand.
Abrdn said in a statement that the board and Bird had agreed it was the “right time to hand over the reins to the team”. Finance chief Jason Windsor has taken over on an interim basis from Friday, the company added.
It said it would begin a formal search process for a permanent CEO that would consider external candidates.
Abrdn shares were up 1% in early trading.
Abrdn has been struggling to turn around its fortunes after years of clients pulling cash, with its difficulties underscored last year when it tumbled out of Britain’s blue chip stock index.
Bird tried to revive abdrn’s performance by shedding jobs, reducing its range of funds and expanding into mass-market investing through the takeover of online platform interactive investor in 2022.
The company attracted headlines in 2021 after a widely-mocked rebrand that dropped vowels from its name to become ‘abrdn’ from Standard Life (LON:) Aberdeen.
Abrdn said Bird would begin a 12-month notice period and was being treated as a “good leaver” under the terms of his contract, meaning he will be paid his salary as normal and will still be entitled to unvested bonuses.
Bird will go on garden leave at the end of June after working with Windsor on handing over responsibilities, the statement added. The Edinburgh-based company had named Windsor as the CFO last July.
Active fund managers like abrdn have struggled in recent years to compete with low-cost index-tracker rivals and investment options tied to soaring central bank rates, although the company reported improved figures for the first quarter.
Trading and net flows so far in the second quarter have shown trends similar to the previous three-month period, abrdn said. Last month, it had reported 0.8 billion pounds ($1.02 billion) of net inflows over the January-March period, while its assets under management increased 3% to 507.7 billion pounds.
($1 = 0.7880 pounds)