Five on shortlist for Lloyds' Insight

By JEFF PRESTRIDGE, MONEY EDITOR AT LARGE
Updated: 08:32 EST, 7 June 2009

Lloyds Banking Group has drawn up a shortlist of five bidders for the part of its Insight fund management arm that looks after £70bn of assets for third parties ranging from pension funds to Marks & Spencer and energy giant Eon.

Sell-off: Lloyds is selling part of Insight

The sale of Insight, which Lloyds took on when it bought HBOS and which overlaps with its Scottish Widows business, is being organised by the corporate finance team at Deutsche Bank.

Financial Mail understands that the shortlist is dominated by private equity groups and American investment houses looking for a foothold in the UK.

Cash-rich private equity group Hellman & Friedman, already on the short ist to buy energy and metals consultancy Wood Mackenzie from Candover, is believed to be one of the five, although Hellman would not confirm this.

Insight, set up seven years ago, has about £116bn under management but not all of this is up for grabs. About 40% of assets are group-related, comprising HBOS insurance arms Halifax Life and Clerical Medical, and these would stay within Lloyds, transferring to Scottish Widows.

Lloyds shareholders snap up shares, while Barclay's staff get BGI windfall
Simon Watkins, Financial Mail

Private shareholders and institutional investors are expected to snap up the latest share issue at Lloyds.

The bank's £4bn share placing closed on Friday with the new shares priced at just 38.43p and the Lloyds share price standing at 66.3p. The Treasury, which is underwriting the issue, owns 43% of Lloyds, but it is unlikely to have to buy enough shares to push its stake above 50%.

Barclays is this week expected to clinch the sale of its Barclays Global Investors asset management business in a deal that will boost its capital reserves and deliver multi-million pound windfalls for senior executives.

The bank is expected to sell the San Francisco-based business to US investment manager BlackRock for more than £6.75bn.

Staff who own shares in BGI under a company incentive scheme will earn millions, with Barclays President Bob Diamond expected to land at least £10m and a potential seat on the BlackRock board.