London Stock Exchange Group PLC confirmed it is in talks to acquire Russell Investments.
A spokeswoman for LSEG declined to comment beyond an announcement detailing the potential acquisition, filed Tuesday.
The potential deal relates to the whole company and is the latest in a series of bids. Pensions & Investments reported in March that Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., Russell’s parent company, had already rejected more than 100 potential bidders for the Seattle-based money manager and consultant.
Russell has $259.7 billion in assets under management, more than 350 investment products and a number of global indexes, including the Russell 2000 index. The firm’s U.S. indexes have $5.2 trillion of assets benchmarked to them, according to its website.
“LSEG confirms that it is evaluating the merits of a potential transaction involving Russell and is engaged in discussions with The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., the parent company of Russell,” according to the announcement.
It said discussions were ongoing, and “there can be no certainty that any transaction will be forthcoming.” The group said it would partially fund any deal through selling equity. Further announcements “will be made in due course as appropriate.”
LSEG already owns index provider FTSE Group.
Spokesmen for Northwestern Mutual could not be reached by press time. A spokeswoman for Russell declined to comment.
