Martin Gilbert, chief executive of UK-quoted fund manager Aberdeen Asset Management, speaks to Financial News in the latest of a series of Q&As with leading figures across the institutional financial services industry.

Gilbert is renowned in UK asset management circles as a serial acquirer and has used takeovers to build up Aberdeen to the point where, at the beginning of last year, his company had become the UK's largest quoted asset manager. Net outflows last year allowed its arch rival Schroders to regain the top slot, but Aberdeen still had £144bn (€160bn) of assets under management at the end of December, split fairly evenly between equities, fixed income and real estate, with a growing exposure to funds of hedge funds.