Standard Life Aberdeen’s adjusted pre-tax profit slides to £487 million in 2020

Standard Life Aberdeen plc (LON: SLA) said on Tuesday that its adjusted pre-tax profit posted a decline in 2020 amidst the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic. The company, however, expressed confidence that its financial performance will improve in the upcoming months.

The global investment firm is currently in the process of simplifying its business, as part of which, it pulled out of Indonesia and Nordics real estate. Standard Life Aberdeen also wishes to offload Parmenion.

Standard Life Aberdeen shares were less than 3% down in premarket trading on Tuesday, but recovered the entire intraday loss on market open. Including the price action, the stock is now trading at a per-share price of £3.16 versus £2.87 per share at the start of 2021. If you want to invest in the stock market online, you will need a reliable stockbroker – here’s a comparison of the top few to make selection easier for you.

Standard life Aberdeen reports £1.43 billion of fee-based revenue

Standard Life Aberdeen said that its pre-tax profit came in at £487 million on an adjusted basis in 2020. In the previous year, its adjusted pre-tax profit stood at a higher £584 million. The Edinburgh-based company reported £848 million of net profit last year, compared to a significantly lower £210 million in 2019.

The FTSE 100 listed company valued its fee-based revenue in 2020 at £1.43 billion versus the year-ago figure of £1.63 billion. Standard Life Aberdeen said that it had £534.6 billion of assets under management and administration by the end of 2020 – a decline from £544.6 billion of AUM in 2019.

In separate news from the United Kingdom on Tuesday, IWG plc reported £174 million of adjusted operating loss in 2020.

Standard Life Aberdeen declares 7.3 pence per share of final dividend

Standard Life Aberdeen’s board declared 7.3 pence per share of final dividend on Tuesday that pushed the full-year dividend up, to 14.6 pence per share. In 2019, the British firm had paid out 21.6 pence per share.

In an announcement in the first week of December, Standard Life Aberdeen said that it had slashed its stake in HDFC Life Insurance by 2.8% – a move that generated £172 million of proceeds for the investment manager.

Standard Life Aberdeen performed fairly downbeat in the stock market last year with an annual decline of close to 15%. At the time of writing, it is valued at £6.91 billion.