High street banking institution Virgin Money UK PLC has reportedly made an agreement to acquire abrdn PLC’s stake in its investment platform for GBP20 million. This update has been announced less than a year after it was introduced to clients.
The Newcastle-headquartered lender teamed up with investment company abrdn back in 2019 to launch Virgin Money Investments, further expanding its product offering from conventional retail products such as savings and loans.
It introduced a digital platform, including a mobile app, for consumers to choose a range of investments in April of last year.
A new pension product was also added, where consumers may begin saving from GBP25 a month or move current pensions to the platform.
At the end of this past year, Virgin Money Investments had been managing around GBP3.7 billion in assets and over 150,000 customer accounts.
Virgin Money, which has around 6.6 million UK clients, stated that taking abrdn’s 50% stake in the platform should help it achieve its growth objectives, such as doubling the amount of assets under management within the next 5 years.
Allegra Patrizi, managing director for business and commercial at the Virgin Money, stated:
“Our joint venture with abrdn has successfully delivered a new investment service offering simple and straightforward investment options for customers. Taking full control of Virgin Money Investments will mean we can bring the investments and pensions business together with our deposits, mortgages, credit cards and daily banking, enabling us to help more customers feel confident to invest for the future and driving significant growth in assets under management.”
The bank aims to move its staff from the investments unit into Virgin Money, and said it is not anticipating there to be any job losses.
abrdn will continue to offer investment advice for the platform.
Virgin Money shares surged nearly 1% to around 158 pence each on Wednesday morning in London.
abrdn shares traded about 1.7% higher at 161.65p each.
