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A consortium of fund groups have offered the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) £1 billion for the 316-branch network it is looking to offload on condition of a quick sale.

The consortium, which includes Schroders, Invesco Perpetual and Threadneedle, is promising the payment could be made this summer, as the bank battles to conclude a sale by a European Commission-imposed deadline of the end of the year.

Source: Citywire. Read full article here.

Page, who joins from Hermes Fund Managers, will report to Henderson head of EMEA retail Greg Jones. He will oversee Henderson’s UK and European marketing, investment marketing, press relations and e-commerce teams.

He will also work closely with head of global distribution Phil Wagstaff on brand and internal and external communications.

Source: Fundweb.  Read full article here.

The investment division will be responsible for manufacturing and managing multi-asset solutions for clients. Locally it will be lead by chief investment officer Symon Parish and supported by managing director and portfolio manager multi-asset solutions Andrew Sneddon and senior investment strategist Asia Pacific Graham Harman.

The private client services division will be headed up by division managing director Siva Sivakumaran, who was previously director of infrastructure. It will aim to drive expansion in the advice market.

The institutional division has been restructured to incorporate both Russell’s consulting business and actuarial team and will service super fund clients and other large investors.

Russell is now conducting a global search for someone to head the institutional team following Michael Clarke’s departure to Challenger.

The announcement ends weeks of speculation within the financial services industry, following the departure of several senior Russell executives, including chief executive Chris Corneil, head of asset consulting Jerome Lander and head of alternatives Nicole Connolly.

Source: Financial Standard.  Read full article here.

Russell Investments Australia (@RussellInvestAU) are one of many brands included in our Social Media Intelligence –Retail Investment & Superannuation –Australia

The Fishtank ‘Retail Investment & Superannuation’ Social Intelligence report is a comprehensive capture of the social and digital footprint left by Retail and Industry Managers, wider influencers including Distributors and the Self Managed Superannuation Fund segment.

Ameriprise Financial, a New York-listed giant with a market value of close to £10bn, is leading a pack of bidders for the business.

Analysts have told the newspaper they believe if an Ameriprise bid was successful it would see most of Swip’s Edingburgh-based employees lose their jobs.

The Sunday Times says Aberdeen Asset Management chief executive Martin Gilbert has ruled himself out of bidding for Swip, having told friends he no longer sees value in big takeovers as the risks outweigh the rewards.

It emerged last week Lloyds was considering selling Swip in a bid to boost capital. The bank has hired Deutsche Bank to advise on the potential sale.

Source:  FundWeb and The Sunday Times.  Read full articles on links provided.

Once again the time has come for the production of Fishtank’s latest Quarterly Social Media Intelligence report for the UK Investment Management industry. As we work our way through our detailed ‘Listening’ criteria and review preliminary results, already there is proving to be telling insights.  We look forward to sharing in the full report and findings with our subscribers from the 13th May.

To order our UK Investment Management Social Media Industry Report please contact our New Media Marketing Manager, Eben Hocking [eben.hocking@fishtank.net.au].

Preliminary High level trends (Feb, March, April – Quarter 2013)

Competitors

Growth is evident again among included brands’.   In comparison to the last quarter we are again seeing a dramatic increase of 29.5%  in total brand related mentions and activity in Social.

This strong increase, and now consistent trend, is due to the increase in participation levels of Financial Services companies within Social, as well as the exponential growth in the adoption and everyday usage by a broad community of industry stakeholders and relevant audiences (e.g. Advisers, Financial Planners, Accountants, end-investors,etc.).

Industry

Unsurprisingly the Industry mentions around the Retail Distribution Review have decreased this quarter. ‘Introduction’ of the regulatory changes spiked main stream media interest last quarter, however it remains a central topic of conversation across the industry with 10K mentions for the period.

Whilst it is clear that RDR was a key catalyst behind the participation of UK Retail brands onto Social, the attention that it once garnered has fueled a more broad adoption and usage across the industry (as reflected in the 29.5 % increase of Brand activity mentioned above).

Preliminary High-level Brand Insights

Hargreaves Continued Improvement- Hargreaves Lansdown are again the lead Brand in terms of Industry mentions and discussion, with results showing a rise of over 20% (vs the previous quarter). Online forums, in particular moneysavingexpert.com, have been a key source of increased traffic, where the different offerings between fund providers and platforms has become a popular topic of conversations.

Investec growth, with thanks to FT.com- UK’s Financial Times proved to be a key source in influencing and driving the discussion around Investec this quarter. Yet another example emphasising the importance of power of influential voices to drive your brand’s reach.

St James’s Place Acquisition- Growth of conversation around St James’s Place was huge with a 130% increase on the prior quarter. This however was found to be almost entirely due to the sale of 20% of the Wealth Manager, by Lloyds Banking Group in March.

Barclays False Spike- Barclays showed signs of huge growth, initially looking to be around 75%. Again this was driven by a spike around the news story ‘Head of Barclays Wealth Unit to Step Down‘ on Mitch Cox leaving the company in the US. When analysed further the initial results were heavily influenced by what are now suspended accounts on twitter (overstating mentions by more than 1K over a 2 day period).

Sample Reports:

To obtain a complementary sample of the Social Media Intelligence – Retail Distribution Review (RDR) UK Report please contact our New Media Marketing Manager, Eben Hocking [eben.hocking@fishtank.net.au]

To order one of our specific Industry Reports, or to discuss customised research requests, please contact our New Media Marketing Manager, Eben Hocking [eben.hocking@fishtank.net.au] to arrange a discussion.

Ring replaces Campbell Flemming, who became CEO at the start of March. He will be responsible for leading the firm’s sales, client service, marketing and product development programmes.

Fleming commented: “Nick has been a core member of the leadership team within distribution since he joined the company almost five years ago. As global head of product he has been responsible for creating and implementing an integrated product strategy, ensuring that our product range provides high quality, compelling solutions for clients.

Source: Portfolio Adviser.  Read full article here.

The asset manager is splitting Fleming’s role with Aegon Asset Management CEO Sarah Russell taking over as Kames CEO while a long-term replacement is sought.

Jones has spent 11 years with Kames, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Aegon, co-heading the fixed income sector with David Roberts in that time.

Source: FundWeb.  Read full article here.

‘Based on September 2012 Plan for Life data, the Australian funds management industry has been in net cumulative outflow over the previous 12 months.

As can be seen from the following chart, there does appear to be some sign of improvement as each of the last three reported quarters have recorded an improvement in net flows over the prior period, with the September 2012 quarter recording its first quarter of net inflows since June 2011.

Inflows continue to remain well below pre Global Financial Crisis levels.

A similar trend can be seen in the following chart, which focuses on Australian share market ‘retail’ and unitised ‘wholesale’ fund flows.

Over the previous 12 months, outflows have improved and inflows remained steady.’

Source: Perpetual Limited, Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations (MD&A) for the six months ended 31 December 2012