Wednesday tips round-up: Standard Life, SDL, Groupon

The UK's ageing population (the over 65s will grow from 16 per cent of the population a decade ago to 20 per cent in 2022, according to National Statistics) should be a boon to companies that can profit from retirement funding. Step forward the life assurers, with Standard Life and Legal and General offering the most direct routes into the trend, suggests the Lex column in the Financial Times.The problem for both insurers, however, is that the savings boom has not yet materialised. The hope for both is that regulatory changes affecting financial advisers and workplace pension schemes will come to the rescue. Standard Life's shares have underperformed Legal & General's over three years, as investors have shied away from its more radical approach and higher rating, but the trend is reversing and although Standard Life trades on 14 times forward earnings (versus nine for Legal & General), it offers a more focused way in to an unstoppable trend, in Lex's view.Takeovers in the high-tech sector can be fraught with danger which is all the more reason to cheer the progress at language translation software firm SDL, in the view of Tempus in The Times, as the company's acquisition last year of Alterian starts to take off. The Alterian deal has added a new weapon to SDL's arsenal in the form of social network monitoring for companies. Companies such as Expedia and Microsoft now rely on SDL's automated systems to monitor what is being said about them or their products online. The company is well positioned for a re-rating, with peers such as Autonomy and Misys no longer on the markets, but it has struggled to break above its half a billion valuation. It trades at 16.7 times Investec's profit forecast for the year, which is not demanding but it still has a bit to prove. Hold on, suggests Tempus.James Ashton in The Independent looks across the pond at the travails of Groupon, the online money-off voucher peddler. The company recently floated to great fanfare, but there have always been those who have doubted its business model, and now the shares have plummeted as analysts worry about subscribers tuning out "daily deals". Ashton says at the current price Groupon is just the sort of bargain lucky punters might root out on a discount we site. Once on sale for $20, now going cheap for $6. Yet Ashton's view is that Groupon's shares represent anything but a once in a life time opportunity. There is some justification in Groupon pinning its woes on difficulties in Europe, but Ashton's view is that the management is slack and does not pay enough attention to detail, as evidenced by a recent damning report from the Office of Fair Trading. Prospective shareholders should have seen warning lights flashing a year ago when Groupon was forced to restate its accounts to exclude the fees it pays to merchants. In conclusion, Ashton is scathing about the wave of dot.com flotations in 2012 - Zynga, Facebook and Groupon - all of which have ended up enriching the founders, not their new shareholders.Please note: Digital Look provides a round-up of news, tips and information that is impacting share prices and the market. Digital Look cannot take any responsibility for information provided by third parties. This is for your general information only as not intended to be relied upon by users in making an investment decision or any other decision. Please obtain a copy of the relevant publication and carry out your own research before considering acting on any of this information.