Skeoch emerges from the wings
Since David Nish took over five years ago, Standard Life has almost doubled its market value and almost trebled shareholders' money, whilst subtly shifting its focus from collecting insurance premiums to growing global assets.
Last autumn Mr Nish had just pulled off his crowning deal, the strongly-priced sale of the historic Canadian business, which despite shrinking the group by a fifth failed to knock its market value.
So the tap on the shoulder for the chief executive soon afterwards, from that most urbane of chairmen Sir Gerry Grimstone, may have seemed a little harsh.
But Standard's biggest ever disposal, alongside its biggest ever acquisition in Ignis Asset Management, only served to illuminate the increasingly pivotal role of Mr Nish's colleague Keith Skeoch.
SLI's annual report last August represented quite a CV for Sir Gerry to ponder.
It reported that since 2004 when Mr Skeoch took over SLI had climbed from thirty-ninth to fifth largest UK retail fund manager, assets managed for third parties had zoomed from £16bn to £108bn, and profits had climbed from £6m to £104m.
More than half of inflows now come from overseas, helping to embellish Mr Skeoch's credentials as international man, who can develop the group's five overseas partnerships.
But Mr Nish has achieved much in keeping Standard ahead of the game in the turbulent UK savings market, so shareholders will hope that Mr Skeoch's supporting cast will be able to maintain that momentum.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article