Friends Provident has rejected a fresh attempt by the US private equity firm JC Flowers to open talks about buying all or part of the embattled UK life and pensions manager. JC Flowers is understood to have sent a letter to the Friends' board last week in an attempt to open discussions, said The Sunday Times. The letter also demanded that any talks would be exclusively with Sir Adrian Montague, the executive chairman. Friends’ board is understood to have rejected the approach because JC Flowers’s plans were not sufficiently specific. The insurer’s investment-banking advisors, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Cazenove, told the US group last Friday that Friends was not interested in opening discussions at this stage. JC Flowers has built a 2.7 per cent stake in Friends. The move follows publication of a strategic review by Friends Provident’ last month which it initiated in November following the collapse of its proposed £8 billion merger with closed life funds manager Resolution. Friends said it intended to sell its 52 per cent stake in F&C Asset Management, its Luxembourg-based wealth manager Lombard, as well as UK-based high net worth financial advisor Pantheon Financial.