If realised, the sale would take the UK’s largest mortgage provider even further down the road of returning to its “core” banking activities and would have the added bonus of boosting the group’s tier one capital, increasingly under scrutiny by European regulators following the financial crisis.
SWIP is one of Europe’s largest asset management firms with £141.7bn of assets under management as at the end of December, a significant chunk of which comes from institutional money via its parent company Lloyds.
Which industry commentator has previously declared he would not touch SWIP funds with a bargepole? Find out here…
IMA figures for UK funds under management in February, including unit trusts, Oeics, Peps and Isas, rank Scottish Widows Unit Trust Manager as fourth (behind Invesco Perpetual, M&G and St James’s Place) with £32.4bn in retail and institutional funds.
In the same table, SWIP is ranked 17th with £19.5bn in retail and institutional assets under management.
But the company has also been a firm fixture in Bestinvest’s bi-annual Spot the Dog report and retained the top spot in January with nearly £4bn of assets invested in its four “dog funds”.
Last year SWIP went through a significant restructure with 23 roles cut across its equities business as it sought to focus on multi-asset, fixed income, real estate and passive products.
With the appointment of William Low as director of equities SWIP looked to put that phase of its development behind it, but has continued to struggle to hold onto good managers with news of James Clunie’s departure to Jupiter breaking this week.
Lloyds planned share placing of 20% of St James’s Place to institutional investors is expected to raise between £350m and £400m for the part taxpayer-backed bank. It has committed to retaining the rest of its stake (37% of the wealth manager) for at least one year.
Lloyds Banking Group and its subsidiary SWIP said they do not comment on market speculation.
