One of the UK's largest pure property investment firms, Invista Real Estate, is to de-list from London's junior market and look for a new owners, following an announcement this morning that its former parent HBOS is to take back the assets the company managed on its behalf. The HBOS assets amount to almost 40% of Invista's total third party business.

Invista chairman Douglas Ferrans told Financial News this morning that the company, which Ferrans spun out of HBOS and listed in 2006, would start slimming down and emerge as a lean asset management company once the £2.4bn it managed for the former parent had been moved out.