It’s hard to escape the sense that AMP has announced the demerger of its private capital markets division so it could have something – anything – that might give shareholders a bit of hope ahead of next Friday’s annual general meeting.

AMP has been locked in negotiations with US financial services giant Ares since late October. First over a full buyout of the group, and more recently over an indicative offer that would have seen Ares buy 60 per cent of the private capital markets business – which manages more than $50 billion of infrastructure equity, debt and real estate and is best known as AMP Capital – in a deal that valued the whole thing for $2.3 billion.