Bank of New York Mellon, the US banking group, is ahead of the field in advanced talks to acquire most of HBOS-owned UK asset manager Insight Investment Management, according to the Financial Times.

Banking group HBOS is in turn now owned by Lloyds Banking Group. As reported elsewhere by WealthBriefing, Lloyds reported an overall group loss of almost £4 billion for the first six months of this year.

Insight chief executive Abdallah Nauphal does not want the unit, which is valued for its liability-driven investment business, to be absorbed into a larger fund management group, Reuters quoted sources as saying.