Abrdn’s chairman and chief executive were forced to defend the company’s controversial rebrand again during its annual general meeting (AGM).
Standard Life Aberdeen announced the name change in April 2021, with many in the industry ridiculing the loss of vowels.
Daily Business reported that during the question and answer session at yesterday's meeting in Edinburgh, one shareholder queried the cost of the move and what research was done in terms of public recognition with the 196-year-old Standard Life brand, which was sold to Phoenix.
Brand consultancy Wolff Olins was employed as part of the rebranding exercise, but chairman Sir Douglas Flint explained: “I am pleased to say the abrdn brand - and we do pronounce it as Aberdeen - was actually created internally.
“We had it benchmarked by one of the world’s leading brand advisory agencies and they introduced alternatives that certainly were not as good.
“We did a lot of test marketing,” he continued, adding: “We never disclose the figures, but the cost was not a particularly large amount and we didn’t spend a lot on outside consultants.
“We have won a considerable number of awards for the brand… and because the brand attracted such a lot of attention we got a staggering amount of free publicity.”
Noting that the name change came along with a simplification of sector strategy, Flint continued: “All the research we did showed the Standard Life brand was associated with insurance, not with investment management.
“So the real benefit was that we could use it as part of our negotiations with Phoenix.”
Chief executive Stephen Bird said an independent measure of brand strength showed Standard Life was ranked 48th, while four months after launching abrdn, it was second only to the world's largest asset manager, Blackrock. The indexing firm that carried out the research stated that it had never had a client climb so many places, he added.
“Abrdn works digitally,” commented Bird, adding that the new logo was becoming “massively well recognised”.
He said: “Standard Life is a great brand for workplace pensions and it is important that we liberated Phoenix to promote that… and of course we own 10.4% of Phoenix.”
Elsewhere during the AGM, Bird said that recession was possible and it would be harder for abrdn to drive revenues.
Flint stated that the year had begun positively as Covid-19 restrictions eased, but the war in Ukraine and rising the cost of living meant it was “difficult to predict how the current year will play out”. He added that interest rates of up to 6% “would not be a comfortable scenario” and that there was “a real risk of stagflation”.
All resolutions were passed at the meeting, though many were against the re-election of some directors and board plans. Brian McBride was opposed by 16.45%, while 15.75% opposed the re-election of Catherine Bradley; who only joined the board this year.
The resolution to authorise the directors to issue further shares was opposed by 19.12% and the resolution to dis-apply share pre-emption rights was opposed by 17%.
A special resolution to dis-apply pre-emption rights in respect of allotments of equity securities in relation to the issuance of convertible bonds got 18.01% of votes against.
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