Aberdeen Group Plc

Good morning and welcome to the Q3 trading update. I will now hand over to Jason Windsor. Please go ahead.

Good morning everyone and thank you for joining Siobhan and me for our Q3 poll. I'll start with a brief comment on each of the businesses before handing over to Siobhan to take you through the detail and we'll finish with Q&A. In the quarter, We've remained firmly focused on delivering against our strategy and building on the progress we've made throughout the year. Group AUMA was £579 billion at the end of September, which is up 4% year to date from £556 billion, mainly reflecting positive markets. Once again, strong growth in interactive investor continued in the quarter. and many more. AUMA was up 5% year-to-date, with net outflows of £0.7 billion in line with Q2. So as we said, getting to net positive is taking longer than we previously anticipated. One positive I'd like to highlight is the increasingly better performance of WRAP, with gross flows of £4.1 billion year-to-date. That's the highest for five years. RAP, as you know, is our critical go-to-market proposition and it is gaining much greater market support. We're confident that with our strength and management team, the changes we are making will successfully position the business to meet the needs of a rapidly evolving IFA market. In investments, we've seen good momentum across strategic growth areas. I'd just like to highlight how pleased I was to welcome the Herald team So I've added the MFS assets and that Tritac's big box REIT successfully raised £350 million in a primary offering. Now, as you know, earlier this month, we sold half of our standard life stake, generating around £430 million. This is all consistent with our strategic focus on simplifying the group. We have a long standing relationship with standard life. Our 10.3% shareholding was very large and now, with just above 5%, we retain a significant shareholding and we remain a key asset management partner. Just looking ahead into the final quarter, we remain confident in delivering our full year 26 group targets of adjusted operating profit of at least £300 million and net capital generation of around £300 million. With that, I'll now hand over to Siobhan.

Thanks Jason and good morning everyone. Starting with Interactive Investor where growth remains very strong. Total customers reached 533,000 up 8% year on year with SIP customers increasing 34% to 131,000. In a seasonally quieter quarter net inflows were 2.5 billion pounds up 32% with year-to-date net inflows of £9.3 billion, 58% higher than the prior year. Trading activity remains on average higher than last year following the elevated trading in the first half with daily average retail trades of £28,000 up 6% compared with Q3 last year. Record net flows over the nine-month period, coupled with positive markets, were reflected in AUMA of £112 billion, up 19% year-to-date. Customer cash balances were £8.3 billion. In advisor, net flows remain challenging, with net outflows of £0.7 billion in Q3 unchanged relative to Q2, but slightly weaker year-on-year. Within this, we saw higher gross inflows into WRAP and continued inflows into MPS. AUMA across the advisor business of £85 billion was up 5% year to date, reflecting positive markets. We have seen good traction in Aberdeen SIP following its launch in December 2025, with AUM now nearly £1.5 billion. We also completed the insourcing of customer service teams in July, Thank you very much. Real assets growth included positive inflows relating to our partnership with Border to Coast and rail infrastructure projects, while net inflows into alternatives primarily reflected positive commodity ETFs. Equities remained a headwind in Q3, with net outflows of £1.9 billion, although we have seen positive momentum and net flows across our GEM income product range. Insurance Partners had net outflows of £2.5 billion in the quarter, which largely reflects Standard Life's heritage business in run-off. Investments AUM was £393 billion, with the reduction in Q3 driven by outflows and adverse markets. This was partly offset by acquisitions of Herald Investment Trust and the MFS closed-end funds. Turning lastly to the Groups. As Jason referenced, earlier this month we reduced our stake in Standard Life, generating around £430 million. We intend to deploy these proceeds in accordance with our capital allocation policy. Consistent with this policy, and as indicated in our half-year results, we have notified relevant bondholders that we will redeem £210 million of additional Tier 1 debt at its first call date in December 2026. We are confident in the delivery of the Group's full-year 2026 targets of adjusted operating profit of at least £300 million and net capital generation of circa £300 million. I will now hand over to the operator and Jason and I will be happy to take your questions.