With only a week left to bid, four private equity firms and a Canadian bank are circling Russell Investments.

Greg Roumeliotis, Mike Stone, and Euan Rocha of Reuters report on who the bidders are for the Seattle-based asset manager, which is owned by Northwestern Mutual. In January, news broke that Northwestern Mutual was selling Russell.

Reuters identifies four active bidders for Russell: one from private equity firms CVC Capital Partners Ltd. and Silver Lake, another from private equity firms Warburg Pincus LLC and TPG Capital LP, a third from Canadian bank CIBC, and lastly indexing shop MSCI. Not surprisingly, MSCI is reportedly only bidding for Russell's indexing business, while the other three bids are for all of Russell. The wire service says that a fifth bidder, Carlyle, is no longer at the table.

Multiple sources told Reuters that bids are due by the end of the month. If this opportunity strikes your fancy, you have seven days to speak up. Reuters puts the price at a potential $3 billion, which amounts to 0.86 percent of Russell's $259 billion AUM.

The list of contenders includes names that are no strangers to the US mutual fund business. CVC tried to buy iShares in 2009,and involved in a bid for Robeco in 2012. In 2008, Silver Lake and TPG were reportedly bidding for Neuberger Berman. TPG is one of two private equity backers of American Beacon. Ex-iShares chief Lee Kranefuss in 2012 joined Warburg Pincus. Warburg Pincus was also reportedly one of the bidders for TCW in 2012. And CIBC owns 41 percent of American Century. 

Edited by: Matt O'Brien


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