The share price of the US fund manager Legg Mason briefly bounced 28 per cent on Monday even as the company angrily denied a tabloid report that it was planning to go private and sell off subsidiaries. Shareholders and some managers at the beleaguered firm may be wishing it were true.

In a lousy market for asset management, Legg Mason has done particularly poorly, sinking by 54 per cent over the past year. It reported the first quarterly loss in its 25-year history as a public company in January, replacing founder “Chip” Mason as chief executive, and now trades at a mere 0.82 times book value. Four competitors trade at an average price to book of 3.3 times while their prospective price to earnings ratios are two-thirds higher and their market value to assets under management about four times as high.