Société Générale Asset Management, the French bank's UK long only asset management business, is to be sold to New York based alternative asset manager GLG Partners for cash in a transaction that is expected to close in the second half of the first quarter 2009.

GLG will acquire SGAM UK’s operations, which has around $8.2 billion of assets under management and its investment and support staff, based primarily in London.

The acquirer will act as a sub-advisor to SGAM UK until the closure of the transaction, which is expected to be earnings accretive in 2009.

GLG says the acquisition will bring added scale and breadth to its existing long only strategies and new distribution channels for GLG’s alternative strategies. It also expects to have a distribution agreement with Société Générale covering GLG’s existing alternative and long only offerings.

Noam Gottesman, GLG chairman and co-chief executive said: "The acquisition of SGAM UK further develops our asset management offering, adding a number of complementary long only strategies to our existing portfolio range. We continue to look for opportunities to strengthen our business and build our investment franchise."