Scottish financial services giant Abrdn has agreed to buy digital wealth platform Exo Investing from Nucoro for an undisclosed sum.
Exo offers artificial intelligence-powered investment technology, and clients can choose between a customised, themed or fully automated portfolio services.
The acquisition will bolster Abrdn’s digital investing capabilities and offer a 24/7 access through an app.
The deal will complement its existing capabilities within its personal arm, the firm said, which includes open banking insights, savings, financial advice and digitally-driven wealth management.
As part of the growth strategy for the personal business, Abrdn said in its half-year results that it will enter into further acquisitions “to get scale”.
Address issues
Stephen Bird, chief executive of Abrdn, said: “This is an exciting and significant step forward in building out our Personal vector capabilities. Exo was the first of its kind to offer a fully automated wealth management platform, leveraging machine learning to feed into portfolio decision-making.
“There is a downward pressure on fees, changing customer expectations and increasing regulatory requirements. It’s important to address these issues by providing a highly-scalable, next-generation service to investors.”
Lennart Asshoff, chief executive of Nucoro, added: “We are delighted to help enable Abrdn’s ambition to make investing easier and better for clients. We built Exo Investing on the Nucoro Platform to fulfil the vision of democratising wealth management by harnessing the power of cutting-edge investment technologies.
“Abrdn’s forward-looking digital strategy makes the company both an ideal partner for Nucoro and the ideal home for Exo to drive that vision and use its reach to deliver the proposition to customers.”
The deal is subject to approval from the Financial Conduct Authority and is expected to complete in the last quarter of 2021.
