British fund manager abrdn's CEO Stephen Bird to step down

British fund manager abrdn said on Friday CEO Stephen Bird will step down after four years in the role, and finance chief Jason Windsor will take the helm on an interim basis.

Following a significant strategic repositioning of the company, the board and Bird agreed that it is time for the executive "to hand over the reins to the team he has assembled over the last four years to drive the business forward," abrdn said in a statement.

The Edinburgh-based company had named Windsor as the CFO last July.

Bird, a former Citigroup executive who took over as chief executive in 2020, has sought to drive a turnaround by shedding jobs, reducing its range of funds and expanding into mass-market investing, following the takeover of online platform interactive investor in 2022.

Trading and net flows so far in the second quarter have shown similar trends to the previous three-month period, abrdn said. Last month, it had reported 0.8 billion pounds ($1.02 billion) of net inflows over the January-March period, while its assets under management increased 3% to 507.7 billion pounds.