Aberdeen International Inc. (AAB) Q2 2023 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning everyone and welcome to Aberdeen's 2023 half year results presentation. It's great to see those of you who have joined us here in our new offices in London and welcome also to those listening remotely. I'm delighted to have our executive leadership team with us. We'll be taking you through our strategy and progress. Ian Jenkins, our interim CFO, will take you through the financials and then we'll open up for questions. At our full year results in February, I described 2022 as one of the hardest investing years in living memory. Well, 2023 has been a continuation of those challenging markets. We're facing geopolitical risks, stubborn inflation, driving interest rate rises, emerging credit risk, and the evolving industry dynamics in traditional asset management, such as the continuing growth of passive and index investing, the democratization of technology and finance, and the rapid expansion of alternatives. Against this backdrop, we are focusing on the things we can control and building a stronger business model. Our first half results for 2023 demonstrate the resilience that we built into the group. We've delivered a 4% increase in revenue and a 10% increase in profits, thanks to the six months contribution from II. We're committed to reducing costs as a percentage of revenues by streamlining and refocusing on our areas of strength in the investments business. We're on track to achieve our net £75 million cost reduction target with £30 million delivered in the first half. We've made significant progress in simplifying our business, closing or merging 43 funds, bringing the total to 101 out of an upsized target of 143. In our UK savings and wealth businesses, we've implemented two critical platform and technology upgrades to enhance the user experience f...