Aberdeen Group Plc (ABDN) Q2 2024 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Right, good morning, everybody. Thank you all very much for joining us here today. I'd like to welcome you all to our results presentation for the first half of 2024. I'm joined on the stage by Ian Jenkins, who many of you know already, who's our interim CFO. And with me here in London, I have a number of my colleagues in the front row. So in terms of running order today, I'm going to start with some initial observations on our strategic priorities. and then a short overview of our performance from the first half at a group level and across our three businesses. I'll then hand over to Ian, who will give us more detail on the financial performance and make some comments on the outlook. Then, obviously, we'll open up the Q&A. So, turning first to my initial observations and our key priorities for the group. I joined Aberdeen as CFO in October last year, and I was appointed interim CEO just over two months ago, as you might imagine. It's been a very busy few months in the run-up to these results. I've been out and about meeting with clients, colleagues, and spending a lot of time with the leadership team. And I thought I would start out by setting out some of my initial observations. It's clear to me that we do have solid foundations upon which to build. Our three core businesses, investments, advisor and interactive investor, have established scale positions in attractive markets. Markets that are expected to grow significantly, driven by long-term demographic and structural customer needs. Of course, in investments, the structure of that market is evolving very fast. In terms of headline numbers, our focus is on improving profitability, and that's showing some early signs of success. With group adjusted operating profit of £128 million in the first half, a small incre...