U.S. fund managers eye Lloyds' Insight arm: sources

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. investment managers are circling Lloyds Banking Group's third-party asset management arm, after rival BlackRock scooped up Barclays Global Investor, people familiar with the situation said on Friday.

Bids for Insight Investment's third party business are due imminently from a small group of pre-selected bidders, two people familiar with the process told Reuters on Friday.

"The pre-selected parties are mainly trade bidders. The process will be opened up more widely if the offers are too low," one of the people said.

Lloyds and Insight Investment declined to comment.

Offers for Insight are likely to be in the range of 150 million to 300 million pounds ($245 million to $491 million), the sources said.

As at March 31, Insight had total assets under management of 116.6 billion pounds ($190.7 billion), including 70 billion pounds managed on behalf of third parties.

Bank of New York Mellon Corp, which was bidding against BlackRock for BGI, was likely to make an offer, the sources said. State Street Corp and privately held Fidelity Investments were also potential suitors.

Bank of New York Mellon and Fidelity declined to comment. State Street could not be reached for comment.

Advent International together with Hellman and Friedman, owner of UK asset manager Gartmore and a bidder for Barclays iShares, are also expected to submit bids, the people said, but it is unclear whether they are in the group of first bidders.

Both firms declined to comment.

Part-nationalized UK lender Lloyds said earlier this year that it would keep Insight separate from its other funds arm, Scottish Widows Investment Partnership.

The move was interpreted by analysts as paving the way for a sale of one or both businesses.

Abdallah Nauphal, recently appointed to head SWIP in addition to his role as managing director and chief investment officer at Insight, has been mulling a management buyout of Insight's third party business, according to reports.

"There is no question there are both private equity and strategic (buyers) in the process so it is by no means a slam dunk MBO at all. I think strategics have a good chance here," said another person close to the process.

More private equity firms are likely to enter the process if first round bids do not meet the vendor's expectations, the sources said.

(Additional reporting by Paritosh Bansal; Editing by David Jones)