Flotation, it's all in the timing

Say what you like about Standard Life, you have to admire the company's immaculate sense of timing, writes Nick Fletcher.

After years of resisting the idea of a stock market flotation - because it was supposedly not in the interests of members - the Edinburgh elite finally performed a spectacular U-turn and decided that, yes, being a public company and not a mutual was a jolly good idea after all.

And guess what? The time it picked to go public has coincided with the worst stock market slump in years, and the business has been forced to cut its flotation price.

Business