ABN Amro Mellon Global Securities Services has made most of the running in UK pension fund custody of late, but Northern Trust claims that over the last 12 months it has expanded the number of relationships it has with the top 200 UK pension funds to a total of 54.
Recent successes cited by the bank include three new local government pension fund clients, whose mandates totalled approximately GBP4.8 billion (US$9.4 billion) in new assets. They include the recently announced GBP2.8 billion (US$5.5 billion) mandate from Hampshire County Council.
“Northern Trust is one of the leading providers of asset servicing to UK pension schemes,” says Sally-Anne Callick, UK and Irish pension fund business development manager at Northern Trust. “We have strengthened our presence in the local government pension scheme market and now have approximately one third as clients, and we also retained 100 per cent of UK corporate pension clients’ re-bids in 2006.”
To help handle the additional business, Northern Trust recently hired Victoria Russell as a relationship manager within the UK pensions team. She joins from Bank of New York, where she spent nine years, most recently as a relationship manager within client technology delivery services.
“We are building a business in a thoughtful and considered manner and have successfully retained clients in an increasingly competitive environment,” says Ray Bloom, head of UK pension fund relationship management. “Northern Trust remains extremely proud of its reputation for client service. Our retention rates evidence our culture of putting the client first, combined with the provision of robust and effective products and services through highly-skilled and dedicated personnel.”