March 18 (Bloomberg) -- Aberdeen Asset Management Plc, Scotland’s largest independent money manager, said it will take a charge of about 25 million pounds (34.75 million) as it integrates funds acquired from Credit Suisse Group AG.

The company also said it’s looking to merge as many as 11 Credit Suisse funds with its own. The charge relates to administration fees paid to Credit Suisse and costs related to the fund mergers, Finance Director Bill Rattray said in an interview today.

“We are eliminating duplication,” Rattray said. “It will be just where we have overlap.” He declined to comment on fund managers or staff reductions.

Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second-largest bank, on Dec. 31 agreed to sell part of its Global Investors unit to Aberdeen for 250 million pounds in stock. The purchase is Aberdeen’s most significant since 2005, when Chief Executive Officer Martin Gilbert agreed to buy Deutsche Bank AG’s U.K. fund unit for as much as 265 million pounds.

Rattray said the Credit Suisse funds will be easier to integrate than the Deutsche Bank assets.

“We can pick and choose the blocks that we do in our own time scale,” he said. “Though it’s a large enterprise, it’s something we feel entirely in control of.”

Integration

The first phase of the combination, which includes Singapore, Sydney and Hong Kong, will be completed April 30, with 23 Singapore-managed fund’s migrating to Aberdeen, the company said in a presentation to analysts and shareholders posted on the website today. The second part, affecting the U.K., France, Germany, Zurich, U.S. and Japan, will close June 30 with 120 funds making the move.

Aberdeen, which is reviewing areas of overlap between the two businesses, said there is the potential for as many as 11 of Credit Suisse’s 19 U.K. open-end investment companies to be merged with Aberdeen funds.

Aberdeen and its competitors are trying to boost earnings as equity markets decline and investors limit risks by pulling money out of funds.

On Jan. 22 Aberdeen said clients withdrew a net 5 billion pounds in the fourth quarter and market conditions remained “extremely demanding.” Assets under management were 110.2 billion pounds at the end of December, down 1 percent from 111 billion pounds in the previous three months. New business net of redemptions for the quarter was 2.6 billion pounds, compared with 5.2 billion pounds for the same period a year earlier.

The funds Aberdeen acquired had assets under management of about 75 billion Swiss francs ($64 billion), the Zurich-based bank said when the deal was announced. Credit Suisse will receive almost 25 percent of Aberdeen and a seat on its board.

Aberdeen last month named Paul Griffiths as its global head of fixed income, replacing Gary Bartlett, who is leaving the company. Griffiths was in the same role at Credit Suisse’s asset-management division.

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Last Updated: March 18, 2009 14:54 EDT