Santander revamp offers fresh drive

Three years on from the acquisition of Abbey Group by Santander, an ongoing multi-manager drive parallels renewed UK retail market impetus

When Santander acquired the Abbey Group three years ago to the day, the eyes of the investment world focused on how the Spanish banking giant would tackle the UK retail fund market. Before the acquisition, Abbey had increasingly focused on multi-manager as a way of providing investors with access to world-class managers. As part of this, it outsourced the management of its single-manager unit trust range to several groups, including JPMorgan. However, both the multi-manager and single-manager ranges struggled to perform, and when Santander bought the group it insisted on a revamp of b...