It has been interesting to watch the latest developments at Standard Life and at the financial giant formerly known by that name, both based in Edinburgh.

The fund management business previously known as Standard Life Aberdeen, created by the merger of Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management back in 2017, goes by the name of Aberdeen these days, having been called abrdn for a time.

And the company now known as Standard Life was formerly named Phoenix. This group earlier this year agreed to buy the Aegon UK business, another stalwart of the Edinburgh financial scene which was formerly Scottish Equitable.

Both Standard Life and Aberdeen are major players and employers in the Edinburgh financial sector and have been fascinating to follow in recent years.

And new chapters for both were to the fore in stock market announcements last week, with Aberdeen naming a new leader in the boardroom and Standard Life highlighting its £2 billion acquisition of Aegon UK as it published first-half results.

There has been a fair bit of change at the top at Aberdeen in recent years, including in the chairman and chief executive roles.

Aberdeen on Wednesday announced its new chairman, revealing that Torbjörn Magnusson would join its board as a non-executive director and chair-designate with immediate effect.

Mr Magnusson takes up a role which was vacated by Glaswegian Sir Douglas Flint, former chairman of banking giant HSBC, at Aberdeen’s annual meeting in April. Sir Douglas had been chairman of the company since January 2019, taking up this post when the business was still known as Standard Life Aberdeen.

Since Sir Douglas stepped down as chairman of Aberdeen at the annual........

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