Sachin Bansal, the former co-Founder of Flipkart, is said to be in talks with Essel Finance for acquiring the latter’s asset management business -- Essel Mutual Fund, three sources told Moneycontrol. Talks are in final stages and the acquisition may be announced this month itself.

Sources said Ankit Agarwal, who is an angel investor working with Bansal, has been meeting with the management of Essel Finance.

As of June-end, the average assets under management (AUM) of Essel Mutual Fund stood at Rs 1,040 crore.

SREI Infra too was in talks to acquire Essel AMC, but the deal fell through on valuation concerns, sources said. Essel Group, led by Subhash Chandra, is planning to monetise its non-media businesses amid concerns over debt repayment to its lenders.

In the next six months, the company plans to monetise about Rs 20,000 crore by selling its infrastructure assets. At the group level, Essel has a total debt of Rs 17,174 crore, of which Rs 11,466 crore is infra-related.