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

By Victoria Howley and Simon Meads

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.