Tepid Bids for BofA's Columbia Unit (Update)

(Editor's note: This article has been updated since its original publication to reflect that Oppenheimer Holdings has never been interested in Columbia while OppenheimerFunds declined to comment. A clarification also has been published.)

Bank of America's (BAC Quote) Columbia Management unit isn't garnering the amount of interest the nation's largest bank expected.

Bids for the asset management business have been lukewarm, the Financial Times reports, with bids coming in around $2 billion, far less than the $3 billion Bank of America expected to get for the business.

A sale of the unit also got tougher now that BlackRock(BLK Quote), once seen as the likeliest suitor for Columbia, instead opted to buy Barclays Global Investors for $13.5 billion. ...