Australia - AMP – which via its Henderson Global Investors unit controls 29.21 billion euros in European pension fund assets - has warned that it will reduce the book value of its assets because they are overvalued compared to market values. The move follows AMP’s decision to cut 1,200 jobs last week.

“While uncertainty remains around precise valuations as an independent valuation process and the review will not be complete for several weeks, AMP currently anticipates that a writedown in the order of 1.2 billion Australian dollars (670 million euros) is possible for the year to December 31,” AMP said in a statement.

The possible writedowns include 850 million dollars (472.5 million euros) related to UK assets, including NPI which accounts for 600 million dollars (333.5 million euros) and 350 million dollars (194.5 million euros) relating to former AMP International businesses.

The writedown of assets in the UK would “not impact on the net assets invested in the UK businesses”. It said that total capital invested in the UK would be around 6.6 billion dollars (3.7 billion euros) after the writedowns.