Goldman Sachs Group Inc is planning to shift its principal strategies business into a fund that raises outside money, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing a source with direct knowledge of the plan.

The unit makes bets with the company's own capital, and Goldman may announce as soon as Friday plans to separate the business from the bank's equities unit, Bloomberg reported.

Led by Hong Kong-based Morgan Sze, 44, the team has not set a target for how much outside money it wants to raise, though it aims to complete the process by year-end.

But Bloomberg reported the unit is attempting to beat other proprietary trading desks to raising outside capital, in a wave of expected spin-offs by Wall Street banks.

Under the new Dodd-Frank Act passed in July, banks are prohibited from engaging in proprietary trading, or making bets in the market for the bank's own profits.

(Reporting by Joe Rauch, editing by Dave Zimmerman)

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