Standard Life Investments LTD

Standard Life Investments is a private investment manager that was founded in 1998. The company is based out of Edinburgh and acts as a subsidiary of Standard Life Investments Holdings. Standard Life Investments is one of the largest institutional investors in the UK and had its governance and stewardship team set up by 1992. The company believes in what they call a “Focus on Change” investment philosophy, building their business on the basis that stock prices are driven by business fundamentals, the market is not efficient at pricing these fundamentals when they are going through material change, and that different fundamental factors will have different effects in various stages of the investment cycles. Standard Life Investments locates opportunities through its philosophy including “company restructuring/internal self-help, top-line growth acceleration, change in industry competitive dynamics, changes to the regulatory environment or technology improvements,” believing that it can exploit these market insufficiencies to provide consistent success in its client portfolios. Standard Life Investments shares it knowledge and expertise across its teams on a global basis and believes that its approach to research and investment will allow the company to anticipate investment opportunities early on. The company focuses on the technology, services, and financial sectors, which together make up over half of its total investments, and also invests in the healthcare, capital goods, transportation, and basic materials sectors, among others, in order of decreasing asset allocation. The company operates its business through active management and currently manages over $383 billion in total assets under management. Standard Life Investments has grown both organically and through acquisitions with its most notable recent merger being Ignis Asset Management, which the company acquired in 2014, that had approximately $91 billion assets and benefitted the company’s “strong organic growth and strategic position through deepened investment capabilities in key areas, including government bonds and liquidity.”