Local insurer BF&M Ltd. is trying to set up an asset management company according to a legal notice filed yesterday.

The Island?s largest insurance company has said in a notice published in the Press that it is applying to incorporate a local company to be called Osprey Asset Management Ltd.

Yesterday there was no one from BF&M able to comment on the move, as chief executive officer Glen Titterton is away on vacation until next week.

The company is set up to act as managers and consultants and provide investment and financial advice and consultation services as well as to ?perform, provide, procure, market and deal in services and undertakings of all kinds?.

The legal notice is filed by John Wight, who is the executive vice president, finance at BF&M on behalf of the insurance company.

BF&M Ltd., which is well known for the life, health and motor insurance it provides to Island residents, is the parent company of BF&M Life Insurance Company Ltd. and BF&M General Insurance Company Ltd.

It recently diversified into construction, and owns 60 percent of its subsidiary Barr?s Bay Properties Ltd. which is building a five storey office block on Pitts Bay Road next to its current offices.

BF&M reported in September that its profits had risen by 37 percent to $6.4 million for the first six months of 2003.

The company reported net earnings were $6,373,265 to June 30 compared to $4,655,404 for the same six months a year earlier, which was ten percent better than budgeted, the company said.

The company has total assets stood at $222 million with shareholders equity at $64 million.