F&C reveals £700m offer from Canada's BMO Financial F&C Asset Management has revealed it has received an £700m offer from Canada's BMO Financial Group, sending its shares sharply higher in early afternoon trading in London. F&C, which traces its history back to the formation of Foreign & Colonial Government in 1868, said it was in "advanced" discussions with BMO and was likely to recommend the 120p in cash per share offer. IN FTfm Fund Management At that level, an offer would value the company's equity at about £700m. Shareholders will also receive the 2 pence annual dividend for 2013, the company said. Shares in F&C jumped 24 per cent to 116p. BMO - part of Bank of Montreal - operates its own fund company, BMO Global Asset Management, which manages more than $132bn in assets. BMO has said that it wants to become become one of the world's top 50 money managers by 2017 and has made a series of acquisitions in the US, Hong Kong and London in pursuit of that aim. The announcement comes after a period of protracted cost cutting at the UK fund house after activist investor Edward Bramson staged a boardroom coup at the company in 2011 but stepped down as chairman last August. Mr Bramson had pushed for removal of the former chairman of F&C, Nick MacAndrew, after building a 17 per cent stake in the company. The coup also led to the departure of chief executive Alain Grisay in May 2012. Mr Bramson sought to boost the fund manager's performance by cutting costs and focusing on the firm's traditional business areas such as investment trusts and managing fixed income assets for insurers. F&C had some £90bn of assets under management at the end of September, down from £92.3bn at the end of June. Four strategic partners, all pension funds, account for about 60 per cent of assets. Several of these partners, including Friends Life, have pulled significant mandates from the fund house in recent months. The company revealed in March that Friends Life would withdraw mandates worth £6.2bn in the first half of the year alone, while Achmea, for which it manages £25bn in assets, will pull out £10.3bn in mandates at the end of an exclusivity period in October.