Valentine's Day Gallery: The Biggest Break-ups In Asset Management

Lloyds and Standard Life Aberdeen, February 2018

Last February, Lloyds announced it had cancelled a £109bn investment contract with Standard Life Aberdeen (SLA) after talks to merge Lloyds' Scottish Widows subsidiary with SLA's pensions and assurance business broke down late last year.

Shares in SLA fell as much as 10% in early morning trading on 10 February with a number of asset managers bidding for the contract.

Lloyds gave SLA a 12-month notice period for the termination of current arrangements, with BlackRock securing a £30bn slice of the contract and the rest going to Schroders.

Subsequently in June 2018, Lloyds sold its 3.3% stake in SLA.

Old Mutual 'managed separation', 2016-2018

In March 2016, Old Mutual announced plans to implement a "managed separation" of the firm, which saw the UK arm rebrand as Quilter with £110bn assets under management.

CEO Paul Feeney (pictured) hailed the deal at the time, saying: "We have a very exciting future ahead of us."

Discretionary investment manager Quilter Cheviot retained its name, but Intrinsic and PCA became Quilter Financial Planning and Quilter Private Client Advisers, while the multi-asset business was rebranded Quilter Investors.

Meanwhile, Old Mutual Global Investors (OMGI) was sold to TA Associates in 2017 and completed at the end of June. The firm subsequently rebranded to Merian Global Investors.

Aviva and Prudential, March 2006

In 2006, insurance giant Aviva attempted a £17bn takeover of Prudential, in a move that would have created a global insurance firm worth more than £35bn.

However, Prudential CEO Mark Tucker refused to enter discussions with Aviva, forcing the insurer to either make a hostile approach or call off its plans.

In a statement, Prudential described the bid as "unsolicited and unwelcome" and affirmed its rejection of Aviva's proposal.

Sir David Clementi, chairman of Prudential, said such a merger would dilute the benefits of the group's recent growth for its shareholders.

Smith & Williamson and Rathbones, August 2017 

On 20 August 2017, it was revealed Smith & Williamson and Rathbone Brothers were in exclusive talks about an all-share merger, creating a business with £56bn assets under management (AUM).

However, Rathbones said talks had broken down, resulting in a non-underlying charge of about £5m in 2017 for expenses associated with the prospective transaction.

Rathbones CEO Philip Howell (pictured) commented: "The potential combination was intended to accelerate Rathbones' existing strategy, but ultimately we were unable to agree terms that offered our shareholders an appropriate balance of risk and reward.

"Rathbones remains confident in its strategy and will continue to look for growth opportunities in the sector and assess them with discipline."

WisdomTree Investments and JP Morgan Chase, December 2018

WisdomTree Investments explored a sale late last year and held talks with JP Morgan Chase, according to a report in Bloomberg.

According to sources, negotiations ended in December 2018 after the two firms could not agree on a price for the asset manager as its share price fell in Q4.

Shares in WisdomTree, which acquired ETF Securities for $611m in late 2017, rose as much as 6.9% on 11 February, when news of the possible merger first broke.