Aberdeen Group reports £578.9bn AUMA and strong interactive investor inflows

Aberdeen Group plc (LON:ABDN) has announced its Q3 2026: AUMA and flows trading update

Key highlights:

– AUMA of £578.9bn up 4% (31 December 2025: £556.0bn), reflecting positive markets and acquisitions.

– Continued strong growth in interactive investor, with Q3 net inflows of £2.5bn up 32% year-on-year and YTD net inflows of £9.3bn also up 58%. Total customers up 8% to 533k (Q3 2025: 492k), with SIPP customers up 34%.

– Adviser AUMA of £84.5bn, up 5% (31 December 2025: £80.4bn) with Q3 net outflows of £0.7bn in line with Q2.

– Investments AUM of £393.2bn. Q3 net inflows in I&RW of £1.0bn, excluding liquidity, benefiting from strong trends in fixed income, real assets and alternatives.

– Sale of half of our stake in Standard Life in early October for c.£430m.

– Confident in the delivery of the Group’s FY 2026 targets of adjusted operating profit of at least £300m and net capital generation of c.£300m.

AUMA and flows (unaudited)

Jason Windsor, Aberdeen Group Chief Executive Officer, said:

“In Q3 we have been firmly focused on delivering against our strategy, building on the progress already made.

“interactive investor’s strong growth has continued, with year-to-date net inflows of £9.3bn, customer numbers increasing to 533k, and year-on-year growth of 34% in SIPP customers. Customer engagement has also been strong, with trading activity well above last year’s average, albeit lower than the elevated levels earlier this year. 

“In Adviser, net outflows of £0.7bn were in line with Q2. While returning to net inflows is taking longer than anticipated, we continue to take significant steps forward. The platform is performing well and we are confident the changes we are making will successfully position the business to meet the needs of the rapidly evolving IFA market.

“In Investments, our I&RW business delivered net inflows of £1.0bn ex-liquidity, with good momentum across key growth areas, including fixed income, real assets and alternatives.

“With positive momentum across the Group, we remain confident in delivering our FY 2026 Group targets of adjusted operating profit of at least £300m and net capital generation of c.£300m.”

All figures in this announcement are unaudited and subject to revision.

interactive investor (ii): Strong growth continues

• Continued growth in customer numbers, with total customers of 533k up 8% year-on-year. Strong growth in SIPPs with 131k customers, up 34% year-on-year.
• In a seasonally quieter quarter, Q3 net inflows were 32% higher at £2.5bn (Q3 2025: £1.9bn). YTD net inflows of £9.3bn, 58% higher year-on-year, demonstrating the continued appeal of ii’s proposition.
• AUMA of £111.8bn up 19% (31 December 2025: £93.9bn1), also benefiting from positive markets.
• Following the elevated activity in the first half, daily average retail trades were up 6% versus Q3 2025, at 28.1k.
• ii’s record of delivery continues with the recent full launch of ii Advice, ii360 (the advanced trading platform), and our enhanced Premium Service.

Adviser: Improved service and strengthened leadership, net flows remain challenging

• The return to net inflows is taking longer than anticipated, with net outflows in Q3 of £0.7bn unchanged relative to Q2. Within this, we saw gross inflows into Wrap of £1.4bn and continued net inflows into MPS.
• AUMA of £84.5bn up 5% (31 December 2025: £80.4bn) reflecting positive markets.
• Good traction in Aberdeen SIPP following its launch in December 2025, with AUM now over £1.4bn.
• Completed insourcing of service teams in July, giving us more control of the end-to-end customer experience.
• Adviser CEO Richard Denning has strengthened his leadership team to support a more targeted take-to-market strategy, with recent hires including a new Chief Distribution Officer and Chief Client Experience Officer.

Investments: Net inflows in fixed income, real assets and alternatives

• Institutional and Retail Wealth (I&RW) net inflows excluding liquidity of £1.0bn (Q3 2025: £0.2bn) included net inflows of £0.9bn, £1.1bn and £0.8bn in fixed income, real assets and alternatives respectively.
• Encouraging trends in strategic focus areas, with real asset growth including positive inflows relating to our partnership with Border to Coast and rail infrastructure projects, and flows into commodity and precious metal ETFs within alternatives.
• Equities net outflows of £1.9bn (Q3 2025: £1.6bn net outflow) remained a headwind in Q3, although we have seen positive momentum and net inflows across our GEM income product range.
• Insurance Partners outflows of £2.5bn (Q3 2025: £1.1bn) largely reflect Standard Life’s heritage business in run-off.
• Total AUM was up at £393.2bn (31 December 2025: £390.4bn) with the year-to-date increase driven by positive markets and the acquisitions of Herald Investment Trust (£0.8bn) and the MFS closed end funds (£1.3bn).

Outlook

• In October we reduced our stake in Standard Life plc from c.10.3% to c.5.2%, generating c.£430m. We intend to deploy these proceeds in accordance with our disciplined capital allocation policy, which is focused on maintaining a strong balance sheet, investing in the business to support sustainable profitable growth, reducing and optimising debt over time, and delivering sustainable returns to shareholders.
• Consistent with this policy, and as indicated at our HY 2026 results, we have notified relevant bondholders that we will redeem £210m of Additional Tier 1 (AT1) debt at its first call date in December 2026.
• We are confident in the delivery of the Group’s FY 2026 targets of adjusted operating profit of at least £300m and net capital generation of c.£300m.

1. Excludes financial planning business AUMA of £3.6bn, the sale of which concluded on 30 January 2026.