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British life insurer Prudential is considering bidding for more than just the Asian operations of American International Group , its chief executive told the Financial Times on Friday.

Prudential, the UK’s second-biggest life insurer, said earlier this week that it was interested in buying parts of ÌìÃÀÍøÕ¾´«Ã½´«Ã½’s Asian business and the FT quoted the Prudential chief executive as saying this interest could now spread.

The newspaper quoted people familiar with the situation as saying that Prudential was also interested in parts of ÌìÃÀÍøÕ¾´«Ã½´«Ã½’s U.S. life business.

The group is “looking right across the board at the assets,” Chief Executive Mark Tucker told the FT.

“I think you would expect us to look at the assets in ÌìÃÀÍøÕ¾´«Ã½´«Ã½ as they go through their disposal process…I think we are at a very early stage, and I think we’re considering the opportunities and over time we will come back and discuss (them) in greater depth.”

But the paper said the group would be interested in smaller deals in the United States, possibly blocks of policies that could be transferred to Prudential’s U.S. business. The FT said it had $1 billion in its U.S. arm that it could use for acquisitions.

In Asia, Prudential was less keen on ÌìÃÀÍøÕ¾´«Ã½´«Ã½’s assets in Japan and Taiwan, the people familiar with the situation said.

Tucker also refused to be drawn on whether the group would turn to sovereign wealth funds to finance any bid.

ÌìÃÀÍøÕ¾´«Ã½´«Ã½, hit by losses on credit default swaps it underwrote, said earlier this month that it would sell parts of its overseas operations to repay billions of dollars in emergency loans provided by the U.S. government.

(Reporting by Kate Holton, editing by Leslie Gevirtz)

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