Babcock has consolidated its pension schemes by appointing Northern Trust as global custodian across its Babcock pension schemes, with 2 billion under management.
According to Andrew Birkett, group pensions manager at Babcock: Some of the schemes had their own custodian, such State Street for example, but some of the other schemes were investing in unitized funds, with different managers, and each of the managers chose their own custodian. In many cases [Northern Trust] is not replacing anyone per se, we just wanted a consistent approach to custodianship and reporting across all the schemes.
This is not a reflection on past performance; it is simply a decision to get a consistent approach across all the schemes.
Northern Trust will provide global custody, transition management, investment accounting and performance measurement services.
Babcock is a major engineering support services company operating in the marine support services and defence businesses in the UK and overseas. Three of its pension funds were the first to conduct longevity swaps in 2009.