UK - F&C, the asset management firm which is 52% owned by UK life insurer Friends Provident, is likely to be wholly-owned by its shareholders from next year, though officials say they are still talking to buyers.

Details of F&C's interim results today confirmed the company's major shareholder is likely to distribute its shares among its existing group investors - ie those of Friends Provident plc - although officials say they remain "in discussions with interested parties" which "may or may not lead to an offer for F&C".

Friends Provident announced in January it was planning to sell both its shareholding in F&C and its Lombard insurance, but Lombard is now being taken off the table and Friends Provident is acting as promised and giving the company to shareholders should it not find a buyer.

This latest development also comes at the same time as the firm's interim results show F&C's assets under management fell by £10.3bn in the nine months to the end of September 2008.

The firm admits a large chunk of this money has fallen from its insurance funds, but F&C's institutional business has also reduced by £2.6bn as it states there has been outflows of £3.781bn compared with inflows of £1.168bn.

The actual value of institutional assets have held firm in the nine-month downturn as the institutional assets were worth £27.3bn at the end of last year and are now still worth £27.1bn.

The sector worst hit is equities, having dropped from £37bn to £25.5bn, while fixed income investments fell in value from £53.5bn to £53bn.

It appears property has dropped in value to £8.2bn, since the earlier £5.2bn in assets held was spun off into a new operation through the merger of F&C Property and Reit, and this operation - now only 70% owned by F&C - and the firm had added £3.2bn to the assets held at 30 June 2008 through the inclusion of Reit.

F&C's assets fell just 3% since 30 June 2008 from £96.5bn to £93.3bn.

Elsewhere, Royal London, the parent group of Royal London Asset Management, reported its assets under management have fallen by 1.35bn in the nine months to 30 September 2008 from £32bn in 2007 to £30.64bn by the end of the third quarter.