Some banks needed to sell their assets to raise capital, including Barclays PLC's 2009 sale of Barclays Global Investors to BlackRock Inc. and Royal Bank of Scotland's 2010 divestiture of its fund-of-funds business to Aberdeen Asset Management. But others are also reconsidering the money management business because of broader investment trends toward "barbell" asset allocations, with cost-effective beta on one side and high-alpha strategies on the other, according to State Street's report. As a result, midtier managers such as those now on the auction block increasingly are being squeezed out of the market and are seeking benefits of scale through such deals. "Asset management is not always viewed as the source of low-risk profitable growth that it was before the financial crisis," according to the State Street report. But the conditions that helped bank-owned asset managers thrive during good times might also render them less attractive to potential buyers, according to bankers and analysts.