Gosling's Grouse: In praise of three fund groups

Last week Aberdeen held a little party in London to celebrate its 30th anniversary - a remarkable achievement for a company which, at the turn of the century, did not look like it would last another three years, let alone 30.

Cast your mind back to the ‘split capital’ scandal. Aberdeen found itself in the middle of this with one of its executives at the time, Chris Fishwick, paraded before a parliamentary select committee as the sacrificial lamb. Fishwick was that year’s unacceptable face of capitalism – always ironic to be in that position in front of a bunch of no-mark MPs – and the Aberdeen group looked like it might go under. A decade or so later and Aberdeen has gone from being a smallish, UK-centric brand to a truly global asset manager. So frankly, if a group deserves a little celebration, it is thi...