If nothing else, Standard Life Aberdeen’s new name will be easier to place in Scrabble.
The fund manager on Monday said it will change its corporate name to Abrdn plc. The mostly vowelless rebrand — to be pronounced like the Scottish city in its current corporate name — will “be part of a modern, agile, digitally-enabled brand that will also be used for all the company’s client-facing businesses globally.”
Continuing the corporate speak, the fund manager SLA, +0.77% with £534.6 billion ($ 744 billion) in assets under management at the end of 2020 said the name change “marks the next stage in the reshaping of the business and future-focused growth strategy.”
The fund manager, formed after the 2017 merger between Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management, has been operating under five different brand names.
The name change is due to take place before the release of its first-half results in August.
On social media, the change brought a predictable roasting.
For Americans, the changed name prompted memories of similar M&A-inspired corporate rebrands, such as Truist Financial TFC, +3.15% from the merger of banks BB&T and SunTrust.