Leading businessman Martin Gilbert has scooped his biggest deal since leaving Standard Life Aberdeen, paying almost £100million for the rump of the River and Mercantile Group investment house.
The Times reports that AssetCo, the veteran City fund management chief's acquisition vehicle, has agreed an all-share £98.8million takeover of River and Mercantile - taking to four the number of asset management businesses it has acquired in the past year.
Mr Gilbert, who owns 8.7% of AssetCo and is its chairman, had a clear run at the prize after Premier Miton dropped out of the bidding.
River and Mercantile has already agreed to sell its biggest division, a pensions solutions business, to Schroders for £230million.
Mr Gilbert was previously chief executive of Aberdeen Asset Management, which was merged with Standard Life in 2017 to become the recently-renamed abrdn.
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