Banks selling off asset management divisions will drive future mergers and acquisitions among investment management firms as M&A activity in this sector dropped significantly during the first half of this year, according to a new report.

In the first half of the year, 104 fund managers were purchased for a total committed deal value of about $10.6bn (€6.85bn), according to a Jefferies Putnam Lovell report. This represented a sharp decline from the first six months of last year, when $36.9bn was spent on 115 deals.