Henderson Group, the FTSE 250 fund manager, will tell investors this week that it is ready to pursue fresh acquisitions, two months after completing its £115 million takeover of New Star.

Henderson is also likely to signal that it is keen to explore international joint ventures and may recruit additional fund managers to join its 840-strong staff worldwide.

Andrew Formica, Henderson’s chief executive said: “We are sitting in a period of unprecedented change. Banks that own insurers and asset managers are putting that ownership under review. The opportunity for independent asset managers to expand their businesses, both geographically and along product lines, has never been greater.”

Henderson launched its offer for New Star in January, when John Duffield’s former high-flying asset manager was under the control of a five-strong syndicate of banks.

New Star was brought down by its unsustainable £240 million debt burden. Its share price lost more than 90 per cent of its value and investors were redeeming millions in assets each day.

Mr Formica said that New Star was integrated into Henderson. Investors were redeeming assets at a rate of less than £1 million a day, which was being comfortably offset by new business coming in to the group, he said.

“We stood up at a time when others were stepping back,” he said. “The acquisition of New Star gave us a lot of momentum in the UK retail sector. But it remains a relatively small part of our overall business.

“If markets had not recovered in March, I would have expected greater consolidation by now. The window of opportunity may now extend for longer than I previously thought. Valuations are reasonable.”

Henderson, which manages about £53 billion of assets, will publish a first-half trading update on Thursday. Last week analysts at Noble moved their recommendation on Henderson shares from “negative” to “positive”. They are forecasting annual pre-tax profits of £70.8 million for 2009, on operating income of £256.9 million.

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