Schroders nears Benchmark Capital disposal – report

Schroders is close to agreeing the sale of Benchmark Capital, its financial planning business, to Söderberg & Partners for more than £200m ($264.8m), reported the Financial Times (FT).

The UK asset manager plans to shift resources towards clients with far larger investable assets.

Benchmark manages £36.9bn in assets under management and supplies services to financial advisers whose clients typically have hundreds of thousands of pounds to invest.

According to sources, Schroders is seeking to place emphasis on ultra-high-net-worth clients.

Those customers are served through Cazenove Capital and the group's international wealth management operation.

The potential transaction comes only months after Schroders' board and founding family agreed to a £9.9bn sale to US asset manager Nuveen, which shareholders approved in April.

Under chief executive Richard Oldfield, Schroders has been retreating from peripheral and non-core operations while trying to reduce costs and redirect resources towards its core asset management arm and affluent clients.

If completed, the sale would leave Schroders' wealth management division comprising Cazenove, which has £83.8bn in assets under management

Fuente original: Yahoo Finance (https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/schroders-nears-benchmark-capital-disposal-114920642.html)