Late on Thursday, Belgian financial group Dexia said it had entered into exclusive discussions with New York Life Investment. Dexia engaged in talks with New York Life Investments for its planned sale of the company's asset management unit.

The Belgian financial firm had to sell Dexia Asset Management as a part of a deal with EU regulators. This was in exchange for a state aid it had received in recent years. Dexia did not disclose any financial terms for its planned sale to New York Life Investments.

Initially, Dexia agreed to sell the asset management unit to GCS Capital. The deal would have been valued for EUR380 million. However, the talks of Dexia with the Hong Kong based firm fell last July.

According to a Reuters report, Dexia said it was confident that New York Life Investments would soon push through with the deal once the two sides had put pen to paper. New York Life Investments of around USD388 billion assets under management.

Last Wednesday, FinEx Capital also made an offer to acquire Dexia's asset management arm.