Aberdeen is in exclusive talks to sell Finimize, the investment insights platform it bought just four years ago, as its new chief executive unwinds another chunk of his predecessor’s legacy.
Sky News understands that the FTSE-250 asset management group has narrowed its search for a buyer for Finimize to a single party.
The exclusive talks with the buyer – whose identity was unclear on Sunday – have been ongoing for at least a month, according to insiders.
City sources said that Brave Bison, the London-listed marketing group that operates a number of community-based businesses, was among the parties that had previously held talks with Aberdeen about a deal.
Finimize charges an annual subscription fee for investment tips, and had more than one million subscribers to its newsletter at the time of Aberdeen’s £87million purchase of the business.
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The sale of Finimize would represent another step in chief executive Jason Windsor’s reshaping of the company, which now has a market capitalisation of £3.6billion.
Mr Windsor, who replaced Steven Bird last year, also ditched the company’s much-ridiculed Abrdn branding, with the group having been formed in 2017 from the merger of Aberdeen Asset Management and Standard Life.
Investors were left underwhelmed by the merger, which originally valued the enlarged company at about £11billion.
On Friday, Aberdeen shares closed at 194.7p, up 30% during the last year.
Aberdeen declined to comment.
