Nationwide Financial Services Inc. of Columbus, Ohio, has a deal to sell its active asset management business to Aberdeen Asset Management Inc.
The transaction, announced Tuesday, is expected to close on Oct. 1. The price was not disclosed. Aberdeen would acquire all of Nationwide's portfolio managers, analysts, and support personnel, as well as resources and technology.
The active asset management business would continue to operate from its office in West Conshohocken, Pa. Aberdeen would subadvise 21 Nationwide Mutual Funds and nine Nationwide Variable Insurance Trust Funds, which had about $7 billion of assets under management as of Aug. 31.
Mark R. Thresher, the president and chief operating officer of Nationwide Financial, said in a press release that it is selling its proprietary investment platform as part of its effort to move its fund business to an open architecture, subadvised platform.
In May, Nationwide Financial renamed its NWD Investment Management as Nationwide Funds Group to better align the unit with the Nationwide brand. The company announced at that time that it planned to move to a subadvised platform.
Nationwide Fund Advisors, a Conshohocken, Pa., subsidiary of Nationwide Funds Group, would remain the fund arm of Nationwide Financial. Aberdeen Asset Management Inc. is a subsidiary of Scotland's Aberdeen Asset Management PLC, which had $178.8 billion of assets under management as of June 30.
