UK property company Savills is to start talks this week to sell a £500 million stake in its £2.5 billion European asset management arm, Cordea Savills, according to a report in The Times. Around a dozen UK institutional investors and quoted property firms, including Morley, Henderson, the Prudential and HBOS and Aberdeen Asset Management, along with Land Securities and British Land, are potential bidders according to the report. Cordea Savills has portfolios in Italy, Germany, the Republic of Ireland, France, the Nordic countries, as well as the UK. Such a sale would dilute Savills’ existing 60 per cent stake in Cordea and the 40 per cent held by management led by Bill Hackney, Justin O’Connor and John Partridge.