Aberdeen’s investors will own only a third of the combined company if the deal goes through Richard Langdon/Getty ImagesEighteen months ago, after a slump in its fortunes amid turmoil in emerging markets, Aberdeen Asset Management was said to have sounded out potential buyers. Martin Gilbert, the fund manager’s co-founder and chief executive, reacted in typically forthright style, insisting that in more than three decades running Aberdeen he had “never made a formal or informal approach to anyone to buy the business”. Yet the bid rumours refused to go away. Indeed, Mr Gilbert himself conceded last May that the company had “a lot of people wanting to buy us”, though he insisted that maintaining Aberdeen’s independence remained the preferred course of action. It may not be a takeover, but the proposed £11 billion merger with Standard Life announced over the weekend would leave Aberdeen’s…

Source: The Times March 06, 2017 00:02 UTC