Standard Life Aberdeen has begun the process of buying shares back from investors after the sale of its life arm to Phoenix.
A stock exchange announcement this morning, SLA has bought somewhere in the region of 770,000 ordinary shares from Merrill Lynch international. The average price per share was 318p meaning that the cost for SLA was around £245m.
Analysts had previously maintained that SLA should look to potential buyers as a way for SLA to maintain its earnings per share. This is the case due to a £109bn fund management mandate with Scottish Widows remaining unresolved.
Jefferies international has noted that there is potential for SLA to use funds generated from the previous sale of Standard Life’s arm to Phoenix in February for a buyback. It is added that investors are still lacking clarity of how these raised funds will be used when research was produced on the firm in April.
