What it really is is an electronic portfolio distribution service that links lenders to RBC's global network of borrowers. It will initially be available in North America and then extended worldwide. Two broker/dealers have so far subscribed to the service.

BNY will provide Liontrust with a full service, including the processing of telephone deals and monthly management accounting, statements, distributions and reconciliation processing. The business will be migrating onto BNY’s retail funds dealing and registration software in February 2004.

Vinay Abrol, IT and operations director at Liontrust, said: ‘This outsourcing partnership with The Bank of New York enables us to focus on further enhancing our client service and investment performance. We have experienced rapid growth in funds under management over the past few years, and we are confident that The Bank of New York provides us with the leading capabilities in fund administration service to meet our requirements.’

Joseph Hastings, executive vice president and chief financial officer, Delaware Investments said: ‘From a strategic standpoint, we are very pleased with the selection of JPMorgan as custodian for the Optimum Fund Trust. We expect nothing less than continued excellent customer support that the Delaware Investments Family of Funds has received over the years from JPMorgan.’

‘State Street worked diligently with us to fully understand our unique requirements and to develop a securities lending program that would fit our investment style,’ said Viv Tierney, financial controller and secretary to the trustee of the Tate & Lyle Group Pension Scheme. ‘Since we are first-time lenders, State Street’s thorough approach to risk management was a key factor in our decision, as was its global scale and our very satisfactory relationship with the company thus far.’

The specially commissioned study covered 67 CEOs, CFOs and senior executives of major wealth management institutions in 10 European countries. And – guess what? SEI is developing a new wealth management service that combines asset management, client administration and back office processing ‘to meet the needs of the private banking market’. The service will be available in the latter part of 2004.

Commenting on the research, Francis Jackson, managing director, global private banking services, said: ‘From the research it is clear that the European Wealth Management business model is set to change. Reduction in resource commitments to non-core areas is inevitable. Yet, as this research shows, many institutions are resistant to even this type of change, citing issues such as a loss of control and a fear of the unknown because there are very few specialist outsource solution providers that can partner with them through the process. The marketplace is crying out for a solution that combines full back office with asset management and we believe we can provide an answer to this problem.’

Euroclear Bank is also ‘slashing’ its tariffs by EUR24m in 2004 for several products and services. Clients will save up to 14% from reductions in safekeeping fees for international securities (e.g. eurobonds, MTNs, ECPs) as of 1 January 2004. In addition, Euroclear Bank will reduce safekeeping fees by an average of 17% for Euronext Amsterdam and Euronext Brussels shares held in Euroclear Bank and will lower cross-border settlement fees by an average of 50% for equities traded on these two Euronext markets as well as on Euronext Paris.

Phillips has more than 30 years’ experience in pensions servicing and consulting. He spent 15 years at Xerox Ltd. in a variety of roles, most recently as director of pensions with overall responsibility for international pensions policy, strategy and operations for all Xerox pension schemes. At State Street, he will be responsible for the company’s relationships with the consultant community, particularly in the pension and collective investment sectors.

The product identifies the drivers behind fund trading costs including commissions, trade execution, and local fees for equity holdings. The report compares the daily prices of manager trades against the volume weighted average price (VWAP), and provides summary report information by manager, country, broker, and total fund.

Just to prove that it is not vapourware, Northern has even got a client to endorse the service. ‘I tend to believe my managers are obtaining best execution, but I had no way of verifying it,’ said Jeb Burns, director of investments, Michigan Employees Retirement System. ‘Now, I have a tool that allows me to easily identify the areas that may be adversely impacting my fund’s trading costs.’

Peter Derrick, the Chamberlain of London, said of the deal: ‘Our primary objective was to ensure that our assets were held safely, by a committed provider. Not only did ABN AMRO Mellon offer exceptional financial stability, but they equally stood out as a consistent leader in terms of service quality, flexibility and technological strength.’

W.H. van Houwelingen, chairman of AEGON Asset Management Netherlands, said: ‘AEGON Asset Management is continuously improving its services, also by means of external parties that are responsible for the custody of our stocks. We selected KAS BANK on the basis of their professional services and their establishment in the Netherlands.’

AEGON Asset Management Netherlands is part of AEGON Nederland N.V., a subsidiary company of AEGON N.V. Over 170 institutional investors – the majority of which are pension funds – have assets under management with AEGON Asset Management Netherlands.

Legg Mason Canada Inc. had approximately C$12bn in assets under management as of September 30, 2003, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Legg Mason, Inc., a Baltimore-based holding company that provides asset management, securities brokerage, investment banking and related financial services through its subsidiaries. As of September 30, 2003, Legg Mason had US$237bn in assets under management.

Logier joins Euroclear from State Street Luxembourg, where he was director of sales and marketing. Logier will report to Pierre Slechten, managing director, product management division, Euroclear Bank.

dwpbank, the result of a merger of the cooperative banking sector's transaction banks (bws bank) and parts of the savings bank organisation (WPS Bank), currently looks after nearly six million custody safe-keeping accounts for clients from all areas of the banking industry. Dresdner Bank will transfer settlement activities for around 1.9 million custody safekeeping accounts.

Dresdner recently agreed to transfer its Germany sub-custody business to Deutsche Bank.

The San Francisco office will offer specialised fund accounting and valuation services utilising the Advent Geneva platform, complex tax calculations and investor services for domestic partnerships, utilising Advent Partner software and offshore investor services through Koger NTAS. In addition, clients of the office will also benefit from a variety of new modular technology solutions currently underway. The office will be headed by Scott Epstein, currently vice president and senior client services manager for Bank of Bermuda (New York) Limited.

According to Kenneth King, treasurer of Quanta, said: ‘We chose to appoint JPMorgan because of their reputation in the industry and their ability to deliver a cohesive package of innovative services across their global franchise, which we will look to leverage as we continue to expand our business.’

Separately, State Street’s head of fund accounting in the UK, Matthew Brown, has resigned to take up a new role with Lifetime Group, a start-up independent financial adviser.

Simon Thomas, CEO and chief ratings officer of Thomas Murray said: ‘The UK custody market has over-consolidated in recent years to the detriment of the service provision offered to institutional investors by custodians. NCS’s commitment to the business is good for competition and the fund community.’

‘After a thorough evaluation process, we selected The Bank of New York based on their commitment to the investor services industry,’ said Neil McConachie, treasurer & chief accounting officer at Montpelier Re. ‘We were impressed with the integration of their custody and cash services as well as their securities lending program.’

Walsh joins The WM Company from HSBC, where he has worked for nearly 15 years, most recently as head of investment services and managing director of HSBC Investment Funds (UK).

This new service will combine Morley’s fund management administration operating platform, and over 200 Morley employees, with JPMIS’ generic investment administration infrastructure. In addition to Morley’s clients, the operation will also offer its services to the external market.

The new service will develop over the next 12 months through a number of stages, incorporating the transfer of Morley employees and operational assets to JPMorgan, as well as a number of phased IT developments. It will carry out all existing core operational functions associated with Morley’s investment activities, including fund accounting, securities administration, business analysis and client reporting.

Keith Jones, chief executive, Morley Fund Management, said: ‘Morley’s continuing strategy this year has been to refocus our resources to build upon our core strengths and sharpen our competitiveness. The reality of today’s market environment is that almost all fund managers have to take a long hard look at their businesses and embrace significant change. We believe we are leading the way on this within our industry. This is a new type of service that we believe will create best practice within our industry. We will be directly involved in shaping the infrastructure and delivery of this new service to ensure that it meets our needs and, most importantly, the needs of our clients.’

Ramy Bourgi, business executive JPMIS Europe, Middle East and Africa, said: ‘By using the Morley platform and people as the foundation for this initiative we can catapult JPMIS into a clear leadership position in terms of creating an administration capability for asset managers and their clients. Over recent months there has been a growing trend toward this type of arrangement amongst the asset management community both in the UK and Europe. This service is designed to meet that need head on and, by using the proven expertise of Morley, bring the capability to market quickly.’

Morley is an independently managed, London-based asset management business with over GBP107bn under management. It actively manages a diverse range of asset classes and employs in the region of 900 staff worldwide based in London, Singapore and an associate office in Boston. Morley is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Aviva Group and manages both institutional and retail funds under the Morley brand. It also acts as investment manager for a range of retail investment funds, marketed in the UK by Norwich Union, and international funds marketed under the Aviva Funds brand.

BNY will assume responsibility for operational functions, including trade support, data management, portfolio accounting, reconciliation and performance measurement. In addition, the bank will deliver end-client statements and a variety of portfolio information to AXA IM via a customised Internet portal.

Robert A. Kyprianou, director of AXA Investment Managers, said, ‘We selected The Bank of New York as our outsourcing partner because they were very responsive and offered us a creative solution to meet our growing business needs. We feel that The Bank of New York is able to provide the high quality operational platform necessary to support our new US investment-grade investment management business. With this arrangement, we are able to focus on investment decisions, confident that the bank will manage our infrastructure needs on an ongoing basis.’

AXA IM is a multi-specialist asset management company within the AXA Group. AXA IM is one of the largest European-based asset managers with approximately $323bn under management and over 2,100 people serving clients from eleven countries. AXA IM Inc. operates in the US with specialist teams in US investment grade and high yield fixed income.

• Jeffrey Tessler has been appointed executive vice president for BNY Securities Group, the bank’s global agency brokerage, clearing and financial services outsourcing sector, where he will co-ordinate strategic business development opportunities with the firm’s largest institutional clients.
• Timothy Keaney has been appointed executive vice president and head of Europe, succeeding Tessler.
• Chris Sturdy, managing director, has been appointed head of Depositary Receipts, succeeding Keaney.
• Michael Cole-Fontayn, managing director, has been appointed head of international marketing for Global Issuer Services, succeeding Sturdy.

Tessler, who has been head of Europe for six years, will relocate to New York and report to Joe Velli, senior executive vice president of the bank and chief executive officer of BNY Securities Group.

Keaney, who has headed the bank’s Depositary Receipts business for three years, will be based in London and will report to vice chairman Alan Griffith. Prior to joining the bank in 2000, Keaney was a London-based senior vice president of Deutsche Bank, where he had management responsibilities within the custody, asset management, cash management and trade finance businesses.

Sturdy, who joined the bank in 1982, will report to Brian Rogan, senior executive vice president and head of Global Issuer Services. Sturdy has most recently served as managing director and head of international marketing for Global Issuer Services.

Cole-Fontayn has been with the bank since 1984 and has served in key management roles in the Asian and European issuer services businesses.

The Frankfurt office offers both local and direct settlement services in Poland and Hungary, in local currency, so avoiding the need for the client to open accounts in these locations directly.

ISIS conducted discussions with a number of potential partners before selecting JP Morgan. CSTIM Ltd, the specialist consultancy in the investment management industry, assisted ISIS in the selection process.

A key aspect of the deal between ISIS and JP Morgan is that all staff impacted in ISIS' London and Edinburgh offices will be offered jobs in their current location of employment. Potentially around 70 of ISIS' 500 staff will have their employment transferred to JP Morgan.

We are already one of the UK's top ten asset managers,’ said Howard Carter, chief executive officer of ISIS Asset Management, ‘but our strategic goal is to become one of the top five by 2007. To help us achieve that goal, we reviewed our operational model to ensure that it is both scaleable and that it is flexible enough to respond to future regulatory and market changes. We are committed to delivering a business model which offers our clients the high service standards they both expect and deserve. Our review concluded that the way forward was to partner with a larger organisation that specialises in operational administration.’

ISIS handed JPMIS a $12bn custody, trustee and depositary mandate for its retail collective funds in March, and appointed it as fund accountant in August.

Froud was group chief information officer, Schroders Plc, from 1996 to 2001, with global responsibility for asset management, retail funds and private banking applications and infrastructure. He was previously director of information technology, Mercury Asset Management. He joins from EMC, the world’s seventh largest software company, where he was executive director business and organisational development.

Hards was senior executive, IBM Consulting, with responsibility for UK investment management consulting following the merger of the consulting businesses of PriceWaterhouseCoopers and IBM. He was previously UK head of investment management for PWC, having joined the firm in 1983.

CI Mutual Funds Inc. has selected RBC Global Services as the exclusive outsourcing provider for its recently acquired Skylon Capital Corp. and Synergy Mutual Funds operations, with total assets under administration valued at C$2.2bn. This latest engagement for RBC creates the largest outsourcing relationship for custody and investment administration services in the Canadian market. In total, RBC Global Services will provide custody and fund accounting services to over $37.3bn of assets under administration for CI. ‘Our recent acquisitions offered us a unique opportunity to review the offerings of the leading outsourcing providers,’ says Stephen A. McPhail, executive vice-president, chief financial officer and chief operating officer at CI. ‘Based on their commitment to client service excellence and innovative client solutions, we view RBC Global Services as the premier provider of custody and investment administration outsourcing services in Canada. RBC Global Services has a proven track record of successfully implementing outsourcing solutions that support our strategic objectives and benefit both our clients and shareholders.’

The Winnipeg Foundation has selected RBC Global Services as its custodian for about C$300m in assets under administration. ‘Having access to a highly experienced and knowledgeable team of custody professionals and support staff, who will focus on the Foundation's needs now and in the future, was key to our decision,’ stated Richard L. Frost, chief executive officer of The Winnipeg Foundation. ‘After a comprehensive review of suppliers, RBC Global Services' commitment to service excellence by providing a cost-effective and efficient solution, proved to be the best choice for our investment portfolio.’

‘BBH’s focused approach and integrated client solutions are a perfect fit with our business objectives,’ said Heartland Advisors’ chief operating officer Paul Beste. ‘As a company, we are always looking for new ways to maximise operational efficiencies that allow us to maintain a competitive edge in today’s fast changing financial market.’

Heartland Advisors, based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, manages approximately $2.4bn for institutional clients, high net-worth individuals, and the Heartland Funds.

Prior to joining BNY, Aldrich was a senior manager at JP Morgan Chase in London, where he was head of relationship management and sales for its clearance and collateral management products in Europe. Before that, he held senior positions at both Credit Suisse First Boston and UBS.

The service includes a SWIFT service bureau, providing outsourced SWIFT connectivity, facilities management, disaster recovery and data processing services. As a SWIFT electronic trade confirmation service provider, JPMorgan Message Express acts as an agent on behalf of clients to exchange electronic trade confirmation messages with matching and confirmation services such as Omgeo Central Trade Manager, as well as send settlement instructions over SWIFTNet.

Additionally, Derek Allister has joined the firm as vice president, compliance, and Mary Nizzero has joined the firm as a vice president, relationship management.

Hardy comes to NTGI from State Street Global Advisors where he was deputy head of the global structured products group. Before that, he was a fund manager at Legal & General Investment Management.

Jose Manuel Peschiera, vice president and head of custody and trust services at BCP, said: ‘We have had a commercial banking relationship with The Bank of New York since 1914 and are pleased to be expanding our long-standing relationship. We selected the Bank as our provider because it can offer timely access to the US, European and Latin American markets, as well as efficient settlement and processing of our transactions.’

‘This acquisition demonstrates our strategic focus on meeting the fund administration service needs of leading fund managers worldwide,’ said Frank Bisignano, chief executive of Citigroup's Global Transaction Services. ‘We look forward to growing the value and profitability of this business by applying our global operating experience together with introductions to our extensive, premier client base.’

Forum provides comprehensive administration, distribution, fund and partnership accounting, transfer agency, shareholder services and custody for all types of pooled investment vehicles.

The functions that F&C has outsourced to Mellon include fund administration; trade communication; reconciliation; data services and information delivery. As part of the agreement, 93 of F&C’s back-office administration staff have also transferred to Mellon. Transfer of F&C’s back-office functions onto Mellon’s global technology platform will take place over the course of 2004. F&C’s institutional business represents approximately €60 billion of assets under management.

Robert Jenkins, chief executive, F&C Management, said: ‘This outsourcing contract covers a number of key back office services and builds on our long-standing partnership with Mellon. The agreement is good for our clients, employees and company. Our clients will benefit from the vast technology resources, which Mellon can bring to bear on transaction processing. Our employees who are affected move from the back office at F&C to the front office of Mellon. As for F&C, we will be able to give even greater focus to portfolio management and client service – our true core competencies.’

With this transaction, Mellon now provides full administration services on an outsourced basis to 27 institutions, with combined assets of approximately $420bn.

As part of the agreement 80 of Standard Life Investments' Investment Administration team will transfer to the new service provider, effective from 1 November 2003. Citigroup will provide this service from a base in central Edinburgh.

Sandy Crombie, chief executive, Standard Life Investments, said: ‘This agreement gives us access to some of the most sophisticated systems and processes available. They will be vital to our continuing success in an increasingly complex industry. It will allow us to develop and deliver new products to new markets and help reinforce our reputation as a truly global fund management house. It is also a great opportunity for those of our people who are transferring to Citigroup. They will be provided with exciting career opportunities in an expanding business. It is a business which aims to be a 'centre of excellence' for fund management administration in the UK.’

In addition, The Bank of New York will provide Voyageur with trade order management, modelling, and pre-trade compliance tools that are fully accessible via the Internet. This complete outsourcing solution will support several Voyageur locations, offering Voyageur a standardised platform and streamlined processing for its entire wealth management business.

John G. Taft, president of Voyageur, said: ‘After a thorough review of outsourcing alternatives, we selected The Bank of New York because they offered a consultative approach and a creative solution to meet our complex business needs. By partnering with the bank to deliver front-office tools and the middle-office components of our business, not only will our current needs be addressed, but we will also have access to a platform that can easily be adapted as our business grows. We are confident that we made the right decision for our firm and our clients.’

Voyageur Asset Management Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of RBC Dain Rauscher Corp. and was founded in 1983.

Montagna was most recently general manager of IMI Bank in Luxembourg and prior to that he was with Banca IMI, Milan, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro in Rome, and San Paolo Turin.

Optimix, a subsidiary of ING Australia Limited, is a specialist provider of manage the managers investment funds. Emmanuel Calligeris of Optimix said: ‘After extensive review of service providers in Australia BNP Paribas Securities Services showed that they had superior systems, service ethos and were committed to the Australian market.’

‘We chose Northern Trust because of their quality of service, competitive pricing and strong technology capabilities, said Stanley McDivitt, retirement administrator for the City of Fresno Retirement Systems.

‘Appointing Citigroup allows us to improve efficiencies in our Asian securities processing and offer a better service to Korean investors,’ said Haley Jang, director and head of global operations at KSD. ‘This is important particularly with the increase we expect to see in outflow investments as domestic regulations gradually relax.’

On a quarterly basis, Fortis Investments will track explicit costs such as commissions, and implicit costs such as market impact and timing across markets, clients and portfolios. The service also enables clients to evaluate their broker performance on a global basis. All of this is done through the Plexus Average Execution Gain/Loss (PAEG/L) benchmark.

Iain Wallace, managing director of ShareMark, and a director of The Share Centre commented: ‘Following the successful launch of The Share Centre's Growth and Income Fund last year, and the high quality of service and assistance received from Clydesdale Bank, it was only natural that Clydesdale should be involved with this new fund as well’.

‘There is a growing desire to pool cross-border pension assets from a multinational perspective,’ says Steve Potter, executive vice president, Northern Trust. ‘Having such a capability enables multinationals to manage exposure more closely, monitor investment performance more efficiently, and improve the decision making process. There is also the potential for substantial cost reduction, as such an arrangement allows smaller country plans to enjoy economies of scale as part of a larger pool.’

‘This is a landmark deal for us at Deutsche Postbank AG as it is the first time we have utilised an outside global securities clearing provider on this scale for our proprietary activity,’ said Richard Schmidt, head of financial markets services department at Deutsche Postbank AG. 'It means we can now significantly grow our proprietary operation with international counterparties in a standardised and consistent way.’

The main thrust of the Board’s intended corporate structure consists of forming a new company, to be called Euroclear SA/NV. Incorporated in Belgium, the new company would own and operate the single settlement engine, and provide shared services to all Euroclear group entities. It is also proposed that Euroclear Bank, the international central securities depository, and each of the national CSDs - CRESTCo, Euroclear France and Euroclear Netherlands - would become sister subsidiaries of Euroclear SA/NV.

In a separate development, Euroclear will shortly launch an initiative to streamline the ownership of the group. Euroclear plc will make a cash offer to all other shareholders of Euroclear Bank; about 1,200 of these shareholders currently own 1.75% of Euroclear Bank’s equity.

New Jersey State Treasurer John McCormac said: ‘We are pleased to award this important contract to The Bank of New York and look forward to developing a strong working relationship with the Bank in the years ahead.’

Phil Evans, head of securities processing at Co-operative Insurance, said: ‘After a wide ranging review of the global custody market, we awarded the mandate to The Bank of New York because they understood exactly what we needed and offered us a complete service on competitive terms. The bank’s depth of experience in world markets provides us with an efficient global custody service, and its relationship management team has an in-depth understanding of the UK insurance industry.’

The previous managing director – James E. Drumm - will lead an initiative within Omgeo on the delivery of tailored STP solutions for specific market and client segments, based in Boston.

Two investment firms have already made commitments to use ADP Wilco’s new retail outsourcing service.

The new outsourcing service enables fast-track access to Tarot, and provides STP throughout the trade lifecycle from order capture through settlement, accounting, cash management, tax reporting and asset servicing. It supports an extensive range of international instruments and products including equities, fixed income, collective instruments such as unit trusts, and tax efficient products including ISAs and PEPs. Tarot also supports a broad range of corporate actions events.

The transfer will cover the settlement, custody and administration of mainly German securities and traded derivatives for national and international financial intermediaries. The transfer is expected to be finalised by the end of next year subject to regulatory and anti-trust approvals.

State Street offers an operational infrastructure to support clients' wealth management businesses. The company's clients include large, global investment managers as well as private client boutiques. State Street has partnered with over 150 wealth managers and provides services for approximately $160bn in assets.

‘We chose JPMorgan as we believe they are the leader in providing such a comprehensive, integrated product in terms of size, scale, depth and market position,’ said Julian Baines, investment administration manager for RLAM.

Luc Leleux joins the team as a director, business development and will be working with the continental European client base. He was previously with State Street in Luxembourg.

Emma Crabtree becomes a director, business development and will focus on key business opportunities in the UK. For the last five years she worked as director, client solutions, where she worked with clients and prospects to develop tailored solutions.

Rob Messenger replaces Crabtree as director, client solutions. Messenger spent five years with Invesco, responsible for major client service initiatives.

Headquartered in London, Smiths Group has market-leading positions in aerospace systems, detection systems, medical devices, mechanical seals and interconnect products.

ECSDA was established in 1997, and now has 17 CSDs and one ICSD as members, representing 17 European countries (Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom). ECSDA has recently decided to enhance the role of the association and will now offer solutions and provide advice at international level on economical, financial, legal and regulatory matters to reduce risk and increase efficiency in custody, pre-settlement and settlement arrangements for securities and related payments across Europe.

BNP Paribas will provide the fund with asset servicing solutions including transaction processing, fund accounting, various investment administration services, performance measurement and analytics and compliance monitoring.

Paul Costello, chief executive officer of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, commented: ‘BNP Paribas Securities Services showed commitment, flexibility and innovation in winning the mandate. The fact that they have an investment operations business established in New Zealand was also an important factor in our decision.’

Ray Bloom and Jeff Crispin have joined The Bank of New York as vice presidents and senior relationship managers in the UK pension funds team.

Bloom was head of UK pension fund services at State Street, where he was responsible for relationship management, business development and servicing of UK pension funds, charities and local authority clients. Earlier, he was a senior relationship manager for The Royal Bank of Scotland’s insurance team.

Crispin joins the bank from JPMorgan Investor Services, where he worked within the pensions group. Before joining JP Morgan, he was the principal investment officer at the Dorset County Superannuation Fund.

BNY will assume responsibility for all middle and back-office functions related to ABN AMRO’s managed account business, including trade support, model and rotation management, account maintenance, investment accounting, reconciliation, AIMR-compliant performance measurement and billing. The bank will also provide the complete technology infrastructure to support this business.

The deal is significant for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that it demonstrates the confidence of ABN AMRO to work with a supplier that is also closely involved with a major competitor. Earlier this year BNY struck a similar deal for ING’s managed accounts business in the US, and it also provides correspondent clearing services to ING’s global broker/dealer business.

The new model is DvP using central bank liquidity. The new settlement model will be introduced in several phases. In mid-November night-time processing will be implemented. In subsequent steps, the model will be expanded to include day-time processing and a link to further central banks will be sought.

With over 25 years experience in the custody and administration industry, Baillie was previously managing director of The Bank of New York (Luxembourg) SA. Prior to that he held a number of senior positions at Chase Manhattan Bank, including postings in Luxembourg, New York, Australia and the UK.

BNP Paribas Securities Services in Frankfurt has won seven mandates in 2003, totalling €12bn in assets under administration.

Nationwide Building Society currently runs a pension fund with assets valued at GBP830m. Advised by Hewitt Bacon & Woodrow, the fund has conducted a complex and thorough review of its investment arrangements during the last twelve months and as a result identified that the appointment of a global custodian offered a number of benefits.

Michael Fairlamb, head of pensions & payroll for Nationwide Building Society, said: ‘We have already been enormously impressed with both the skill and enthusiasm that Northern Trust has brought to a quite complicated re-organisation. We believe that the partnership between us will enable the trustees to gain access to a more sophisticated range of management information which in turn should help the trustees make better and more informed decisions.’

USS selected HSBC after an extensive review of the market. Colin Hunter, chief accountant at USS, said: ‘HSBC’s strong product, accounting platform, flexible reporting and the speed and responsiveness of its service team were some of the key deciding factors.’

The multi-product arrangement encompasses custody, fund accounting and investor servicing for Majedie’s UK equity products. BNY will use its proprietary platform to provide investor servicing and its common accounting platform to provide fund accounting services to Majedie Asset Management Investment Fund Company, a UK OEIC. In addition, The Bank of New York Trust and Depositary Company Limited UK will act as depositary for the OEIC.

Simon Hazlitt, business director at Majedie, said, ‘We chose The Bank of New York because it has the capability to service all our requirements. We look forward to this strategic partnership, in which we are able to concentrate on our area of expertise in specialist UK equity management while we outsource our custody, fund accounting and investor servicing to The Bank of New York.’

BPSS will provide MIR with a full-range of asset-servicing solutions from transaction settlement and processing, fund accounting, various investment administration services, performance measurement and analytics and compliance monitoring. Mercer Investment Consulting assisted MIR with the review and selection process.

Michael Triguboff commented that BNP Paribas Securities Services is ‘well-versed in the language of the asset management community and well-equipped to service our changing requirements now, and in the future. The appointment of BNP Paribas is an important milestone for MIR because the services to be provided by BNP Paribas will assist MIR in achieving its goal of best practice and client transparency.’

‘Our custodian search identified Northern Trust as an ideal partner for Fife Council, due to their particular experience and knowledge of the local authority sector,’ said Allan Traynor, revenue services manager, Fife Council.

The linkage between JPMIS and Omgeo uses the SWIFT network and ISO15022 messages. Eligible trades are entered by the client into Omgeo CTM and matched with broker/dealers. A matched trade is then instructed to JPMIS. The client has no need to create a separate trade instruction. The process is designed to be generic and high-volume and can be used by any Omgeo CTM user who is also a client of JPMIS. The service is offered by JPMIS to its clients at no additional cost. The first client to make use of the facility is Royal London Asset Management.

Ron Smith, vice president for finance at Berea College, said: ‘Following a formal search process, we selected The Bank of New York based on its superior technology, comprehensive service offering and exceptional client service team. In addition to its master custody and performance measurement capabilities, we are pleased to also be using the Bank’s proprietary PrivateAnalyst service, which will significantly augment the tracking and performance reporting of our growing alternative investments portfolio.’

Berea College sounds like an interesting place - located in Berea, Kentucky, it is a private, coeducational, tuition-free (!) institution that serves economically disadvantaged students, primarily from the Appalachian region. The college had total assets of more than $900m as of June 30, 2003.

Following its merger in 2002 with Discount Bank and Trust Company, UBP sought a global fund administration solution for its funds. UBP will now focus on asset management, product manufacturing and custody.

EFA will manage the migration of some 54 funds on to its platform and will also carry out a restructuring of the former DBTC and UBP ranges. The custody of the funds will be centralised and performed in-house by UBP Luxembourg, adding another bank to the list of 15 with whom EFA currently works.

Prior to joining BNY, Headon was with PFPC International where he was head of hedge fund accounting and administration in Dublin. His role with PFPC included both operational management and business development for the European markets.

Last year BNY bought International Fund Administration, the alternative investment administration specialist based in Bermuda.

‘After a very careful and thorough search, we selected Northern Trust because we felt they had the best technology available,’ said Gayle McDade, manager of debt & investments, City of Regina. ‘We also were very comfortable with the culture of the organisation and believe they have an outstanding approach to client service.’

Gow comes to ADP with a 20-year background in financial solutions. Over half of this time has been spent in the German marketplace specialising in business development and marketing. Prior to joining ADP, Gow managed his own business, Eurofox Ltd, to support application and solution suppliers to the financial services industry. Previous roles included the position of business development manager for CSK Micrognosis in Germany and the UK, and trading systems group leader for Digital Equipment in Frankfurt.

ADP Brokerage Services Group’s products for domestic German speaking markets include a service bureau for outsourced SWIFT messaging; a financial tax service that creates income statements and tax certificates that comply with German legal requirements; and a suite of regulatory and compliance reports for the Deutsche Bundesbank and the federal securities supervisory office (BaWe). International products include Gloss for securities processing, and the TradeThru treasury solution.

Ashmore Investment Management Limited is a specialist emerging markets fund manager, formerly part of the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group. It is now majority owned by the people who work for it following an MBO in February 1999. The business manages in excess of US$3.7bn, all in emerging market debt and currencies.

The promoter of the fund is Williams de Broë plc, a UK-based stockbroker and investment management organisation, which is a member of the London Stock Exchange and regulated by the FSA.

‘We selected Northern Trust because we felt they had the best combination of technology and experienced staff to meet the needs of the foundation,’ said Ralph Stefano, director of finance and administration for the Clark Foundation. ‘The Northern team was focused on understanding our specific needs and demonstrating how their technology could help improve our internal accounting and performance reporting.’

Susanne Ballauff, also to be based in London, will be the sales executive for Germany, Austria and Switzerland. She formerly worked in institutional sales with JPMorgan Fleming Asset Management in Frankfurt.

Franklin joined State Street in 1997 as a relationship manager and, in 1999, became responsible for new business development in both the pension and collective investment sectors for the UK.

State Street has also named Jon Wrigley as vice president and head of taxation services in the UK. Wrigley joins the collective funds services team headed by Matthew Brown. He was previously senior tax manager for Mellon Europe with responsibility for providing guidance on a variety of operational and product- related tax issues throughout the UK and Ireland. Prior to this, he was a tax manager for Ernst & Young’s investment management group.

Less stringent outsourcing regulations now make it possible for foreign asset managers without their own KAG in Germany to set up German funds. The barriers preventing foreign asset managers from entering and operating in the German market have now been eliminated.

This new position was created in response to growing customer demand for a complete STP solution for the fixed-income market. TradeWeb’s solution, called TradeXpress, is in beta test phase in Europe and live in North America, alongside AccountNet, a new web-based standing settlement instruction database. Smith will be responsible for deployment of both of these products in Europe.

Prior to working with Reuters, Smith was director of global strategy, planning and marketing at Thomson ESG division (now Omgeo). Prior to that he managed the middle office for Fidelity Investments in London, where he made his name as the father of electronic trade confirmation.

Andrew Tucker, BBH partner responsible for Europe, said: ‘We see tremendous opportunities to provide custody and related services to a select number of clients who we believe will be attracted to our high quality, client-focused approach.’

Last year both BNP Paribas and Mellon established UK custody operations.

Carpenter joins IFDS from COR Financial Solutions, where he was sales and marketing director for the retail fund administration software company for two years. Prior to this he was at Kinetic Information System Services Ltd, Primark Inc. and Britannia Software plc.

A spokesman from Flintshire County Council said, ‘We adopted a rigorous selection process and are confident that they will provide a wide range of value added services and value for money.’ The mandate is further confirmation of ABN AMRO Mellon’s focus on UK local authorities, and a small blow for State Street, which inherited the fund from Deutsche GSS.

Konstance will be responsible for building and directing the sales effort of JPMIS’ new product offering, Total Cost Management, which provides a suite of applications that plan sponsors, asset managers and broker dealers can apply to benchmark performance throughout the pre-trade, trade and post-trade process. Total Cost Management’s consortium of providers is Plexus Group, Inalytics and Investars. The new product also features the proprietary settlement measurement service, TradeStarr.

Konstance was senior vice president and head of analytical product sales and business development at Investment Technology Group, Inc., a provider of technology-based equity trading services and owner of Posit, the crossing service.

Components of this newly enhanced capability include broker matching, foreign exchange matching, third party communication, exception resolution and counterparty performance evaluation.

But, having praised the standards, Fair & Clear says that it believes that applying the standards to banks that are not merged with CSDs would impose unnecessary and unprecedented regulatory costs without providing new safeguards.

As an alternative, Fair & Clear supports an open banking model that segregates securities settlement infrastructures and banking services, and embraces the three criteria recommended by the Giovannini Group on infrastructure consolidation: cost efficiency, prevention of systemic risk and fair competition. The segregation of infrastructure and banking services would not only alleviate the mixed-function systems' commercial activities from being encumbered by infrastructure regulations, but would also ensure that financial risks remain distributed across a range of intermediaries and that competition is not distorted.

‘We chose State Street as our service provider after a rigorous evaluation process,’ said Dale Weaver, director of investment accounting & operations of the Retirement Systems of Alabama. ‘We look forward to working with State Street on this important relationship.’

State Street now services over 40% of the public fund business in the US.

Built within BNP Paribas Asset Management over the past 4 years, IRP offers performance measurement tools ranging from risk analysis, including ex-ante Value-at-Risk, through to fixed income attribution. IRP also offers detailed portfolio characteristics profiling against relevant benchmarks.

To manage the implementation in Australia, BPSS has moved Nicolas Le Clech from BNP Paribas Asset Management in Paris, where he was responsible for a team of performance analysts supporting large global institutional clients, including pension fund clients. Glenn Solomon, of BPSS in Australia, will transfer to Paris, to assume the role of global head of institutional clients, IRP.

Royal & SunAlliance USA has appointed JPMIS as custodian and securities lending agent for all of its US insurance assets. The mandate consolidates all of RSA USA’s assets with JPMorgan. In addition, RSA USA will place a significant amount of their short-term cash into JPMorgan short-term funds.

Gartmore Group has appointed JPMIS as global custodian for the Gartmore Funds' $16bn in assets. Under the mandate, JPMIS will provide global custody, foreign exchange, cash trade execution, securities lending and commercial banking services.

The bank says that its GSS integration plan is on schedule and that it expects to meet its goal of retaining 90% of the revenue available from former GSS clients. State Street anticipates that the full integration will be completed by the middle of 2004. According to the latest figures, approximately 5% of total client revenue is on the move to other providers – an increase of about 1% since the last update in June.

Citigroup said it has been appointed custodian for the FHLBanks of Chicago, Des Moines, Indianapolis, New York, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Topeka. Prior to the appointment, Citigroup already served as custodian for an additional $130bn of assets serviced by the FHLBanks of Atlanta and Boston.

‘We have been impressed by Citigroup's commitment to the custody business and the consistent, high quality service levels they currently provide to the FHLBanks of Atlanta and Boston. We look forward to working with them as they customise their offerings to meet our unique needs,’ said Alfred DelliBovi, president & CEO, Federal Home Loan Bank of New York.

Prior to joining Mellon, O’Neill worked in a variety of business development and client servicing roles at Bank of Ireland Asset Management, both in Ireland and the USA, within its private banking and institutional asset management divisions.

Kent has more than 15 years’ experience of the funds industry. He joins Mellon from JPMorgan in Luxembourg, where he spent five years as a service delivery manager, responsible for the delivery of fund accounting, transfer agency and custody services to a significant third party client.

‘We selected BBH due in large part to their strong reputation in the industry,’ said Mark DeSario, head of the offshore managed assets group of Merrill Lynch. ‘BBH has a long-standing history of partnering with clients to provide intelligent, creative and effective solutions for innovative products and platforms.’

Host Super said that while the member choice and unit pricing capability was key to the decision, the dedication to superannuation, in particular to the requirements of the all important industry fund sector, was decisive.

Commenting on the decision, Ari Huotari, chief investment officer at LGPI said: ‘Following State Street’s acquisition of Deutsche Bank’s global custody business we wanted to benchmark what else was available in the marketplace. State Street proved they were able to enhance the service by introducing new technology and services but at the same time retaining the key Deutsche personnel with whom we have excellent working relationship.’

Edelstein joins Radianz from E.M. Warburg Pincus & Company, Inc. where he served as entrepreneur in residence. Before that, he was president and CEO of Thomson Financial ESG, which he eventually merged with the Depository Trust and Clearing Corp.’s Tradesuite business to create Omgeo, the industry utility for straight-through processing. He has also held senior positions at financial services and technology firms such as Dow Jones Telerate, Inc. and Knight-Ridder, Inc.

Gilstrap and his family are moving to Houston, Texas for personal reasons. After he leaves the company, he will serve as a consultant to Radianz. Under Gilstrap’s direction, Radianz’s revenues grew year over year to a projected US$550 million in 2003, due to Radianz successfully connecting a broad range of financial institutions to its global financial extranet, RadianzNet. Currently, Radianz’s customer count includes more than 100 providers of data and applications that use RadianzNet to connect institutions to their services, and more than 9,000 end users worldwide that use RadianzNet to access those services.

DTCC and CDS have a long history of working collaboratively to facilitate cross-border clearance and settlement services for their participants. CDS is the only clearing and settlement organisation with a full cross-border link into the US, encompassing central counterparty clearing and delivery versus payment settlement and asset servicing.

Subject to a consultation period, Mellon will take on the back-office investment administration for all of F&C’s institutional business as well as the employment of approximately 95 of its back-office staff. This would become effective on 1^st September 2003. The outsourcing mandate will cover London-based investment administration.

Robert Jenkins, chief executive, F&C Management, said: ‘Since 1989, F&C has used Mellon for key back office support in its retail business. This agreement extends that partnership to the support of our institutional business. Our clients will indirectly gain access to cutting edge technology and the employees involved will be joining an organisation for whom back office processing is a core business. A number of leading asset management houses have already made such a move and I have no doubt that many competitors will soon follow. Meanwhile, we will be able to focus on our main objective, which is portfolio management.’

Newton has completed the transition of its Newton Investment, Exempt and Private Investment Management Fund ranges to the ABN AMRO Mellon Global Securities Services platform. In addition to core custody, the bank will provide securities lending services. The transfer of assets accounts for approximately GBP5.5bn across 60 different markets.

Aviva Fund Services will use the iFAST TA platform, which is a multi-lingual, multi-currency global shareholder recordkeeping system. This is provided and supported by IFDS, a joint venture between State Street and DST Systems.

Aviva Fund Services provides fund administration and transfer agency services to Luxembourg domiciled investment funds authorised in 16 countries and with assets of €1.9bn. Aviva Funds is the Luxembourg domiciled investment fund of the Aviva Group with 27 sub-funds ranging from lower risk money market and bond funds through to international and regional equity fund to more speculative single country and theme funds.

The company expects to record a pre-tax restructuring charge of approximately $296m, or $0.58 per share, relating to severance benefits and related expenses, most of which will be recorded in the second quarter. Excluding the restructuring charge, the company expects to report improved operating results for the second quarter.

The $125m reduction in expenses anticipated this year is in addition to the $125-$150m in pre-tax savings expected this year from synergies in State Street's acquisition of the Deutsche Bank GSS business.

Amonst the mandate wins is Versorgungswerk des Bundes und der Laender, a leading public pension fund in Germany with over €7bn in assets, 1.9 million insured employees and 1 million retirees. BPSS will act as global custodian for the fund, with Universal Investment mandated to act as master KAG.

‘After a thorough evaluation process, we selected The Bank of New York as our global custodian,’ said Stephen Limauro, executive vice president and CFO of Everest Re. ‘We require flexible reporting capabilities, and the bank’s Internet-based information delivery platform, INFORM, will be able to meet our needs. We also look forward to working with the bank’s team of dedicated insurance specialists.’

Jean-Marc Crepin has been named vice president and manager of the Milan office with responsibility for State Street's new investment services operations. Crepin has led Deutsche Bank's GSS operations in Italy since 2001. He will report to Yoram Matalon, managing director of State Street Bank GmbH in Frankfurt. The Milan-based business has 26 employees. The company expects to close the acquisition of the Austrian GSS business in the third quarter of 2003, subject to regulatory approval.

Chris Perry, director of finance for the London Borough of Greenwich said: ‘We look forward to State Street meeting all of our requirements as we move toward a new investment fund structure. We anticipate a long-term relationship with them.’

State Street has been providing custody services for the portion of the fund managed by Deutsche Asset Management. After a transition to a specialist fund manager structure, the borough decided to consolidate its custody relationship with one provider, having previously used both Deutsche and JP Morgan Chase.

William Littleboy, operations director, Standard Life Investments said: ‘Standard Life Investments has been reviewing the best way in which we can strengthen global operational capabilities to support our development as a leading global fund management house. Strong operational capabilities are an essential foundation and will help provide access to new products and markets. They will also support a wide range of administrative functions within a scaleable and efficient platform.

‘Following careful consideration to partner with a global provider we have decided to enter into a detailed evaluation with Citigroup. As a service provider Citigroup would give us access to leading technology and operational resources. Complemented by the strength and experience of the Standard Life Investments’ team we believe this to be a great opportunity to establish an exciting new business in Edinburgh.’

Detailed evaluation and consultation with the firm’s investment administration people, up to 90 of whom are directly affected by this proposal and would transfer to Citigroup should it enter into a service provider agreement, will be carried out before a final decision is made. Citigroup would provide this service from a base in central Edinburgh.

In Europe, Citi has taken a very cautious approach to outsourcing. Only this March, Tom Abraham, who runs Citi’s outsourcing business, expressed doubts over large transactions. ‘Managers will look at specific purpose solutions, with low start-up costs and relatively few complications,’ he said in an interview with Financial News. ‘The ‘Big Bang’ solution, where an asset manager gets rid of the whole back office, has passed its time.’

William Littleboy, meanwhile, will have mixed feelings about dealing with Citi: he used to work there, both in London and Edinburgh.

Investia Platform incorporates the new SWIFT XML message standards with FIX engine technology to route fund orders simultaneously in a rules-based fashion to the major European messaging and clearing hubs, including Vestima, Fundsettle and EMX, in a completely automated fashion. It will also accept and route equity orders to brokerages and clearing houses.

Colonial First State is the largest fund manager in Australia and is wholly owned by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, which recently sold its custody operation to National Australia Bank and is looking for a buyer of its fund services business.

The LCH.Clearnet Group will clear cash equities, exchange traded derivatives and commodities traded on the following major international exchanges and trading platforms: Endex, Euronext (including Euronext.liffe), the Intercontinental Exchange, the International Petroleum Exchange, the London Metal Exchange, the London Stock Exchange, Powernext and virt-X. The LCH.Clearnet Group will also clear interest rate swaps, bonds and repos traded on international OTC markets, including BrokerTec and MTS.

LCH.Clearnet will be structured to ensure independence from trading and settlement platforms. LCH.Clearnet brings together a CCP which is largely owned by its users (LCH) with a CCP which is controlled by an exchange (Clearnet). The transaction aims to balance the interests of stakeholders and ensure management independence through the following ownership structure:

45.1 per cent by exchanges, comprising: Euronext — 41.5 per cent (with voting rights capped at 24.9 per cent); LME and IPE — 3.6 per cent combined

45.1 per cent by users

9.8 per cent by Euroclear

To achieve this balance, a member of the Euronext Group will offer to sell shares representing 7.6 per cent of LCH.Clearnet Share Capital to all LCH A shareholders for cash. LCH and Euronext will be seeking underwriting of the 7.6 per cent stake. The Scheme Document will only be posted to LCH Shareholders if there are sufficient undertakings to cover the 7.6 per cent stake.

The merger terms value LCH.Clearnet at €1.2bn, and each of LCH and Clearnet at €600m, following a rebate of up to £23.6 million to LCH users prior to completion of the Merger (subject to LCH board and regulatory approval) and a pre-merger distribution of €150m by Clearnet (subject to regulatory approval).

LCH.Clearnet board will have 19 directors:

6 directors appointed by users

6 by exchanges (including 4 by Euronext)

2 by Euroclear

2 executive directors

3 independent directors, one of whom will be chairman

LCH.Clearnet will be led by an integrated management team headed by CEO, David Hardy, and deputy CEO, Patrice Renault.

Full details of the transaction can be found at:

http://www.pimsenterprises.com/lch_clearnet_announcement_english.pdf

Together with transactions announced earlier in the quarter, these actions will result in a second quarter net pre-tax charge to earnings of approximately $51.5 million. This will impact reported earnings per share by $.14 for the second quarter.

Of this charge, approximately $23.5 million represents severance costs relating to the elimination of approximately 700 positions, the majority of which occurred in June. When this staff reduction is fully implemented, as well as the loss of approximately 690 people associated with the sale of the assets of Northern Trust Retirement Consulting, L.L.C. (NTRC) and other previously announced second quarter transactions, total staff is expected to be lower than 8,000, down from 9,336 at March 31, 2003. The remainder of the charge reflects:

• Reduction in the amount of office space leased and owned as a result of lower staff levels ($16.1 million);
• Standardisation of software applications across business units and replacement of existing software with more cost-effective solutions ($9.5 million); and
• Two other strategic transactions that were previously announced in April and closed in June: the sale of NTRC assets ($20.2 million loss) and the sale of the Higgins Road Chicago retail branch ($17.8 million gain).

The strategic planning process that led to these actions also identified additional reductions in operating expenses, which Northern Trust expects to achieve over the next 12 months. The expected effect of all of these actions is to reduce annual operating expenses by $145-$150 million.

Bill Osborn, chairman and CEO, said: ‘We are taking these steps to allow us to improve profitability and focus our resources where we have clear competitive advantages and can serve our clients best. We are committed to delivering value to our shareholders and clients and to operating in a productive and efficient manner. Northern Trust remains strategically focused on the asset administration and asset management business, delivered to our target personal and institutional clients. We will continue to invest in this core business, through acquisitions that fit with our key strategies, expansion into new markets and investment in leading edge technology.’

Michael Roland, executive vice president and chief financial officer of ING Funds, commented: ‘ING Funds conducted an RFP process late last summer and after a wide-ranging search for a servicing partner for all of our portfolios, we found The Bank of New York to have high quality technology, experienced and knowledgeable personnel and a flexible service structure that works well with our expanding mutual fund business. We are confident that they have the expertise to continuously add value for us as we grow our business.’

Mellon European Fund Services provides transfer agency and investment accounting for four Nationwide unit trusts, four life and pension funds and two pension funds, with a combined value of approximately £1.3bn. Services will continue to be provided from Mellon's administrative centre in Brentwood.

Clive Parkinson, managing director of Nationwide Unit Trust Managers said: ‘Nationwide continues to win awards for both our service quality and our Internet presence and it is extremely important for us to continue to use technology intelligently to improve our clients' experience of working with us. In Mellon we have found a partner who we can trust to deliver, and it was therefore natural for us to extend this relationship.’

Mellon European Fund Services has had a relationship with Nationwide Building Society since 1996, and also provides DC pension scheme administration for the company under a separate contract.

Bruce Hatcher, manager of investment operations for GW Capital Management, said: ‘The Bank of New York was selected as custodian for our Equity Index Funds because of its team of top-quality insurance experts and innovative service delivery. We look forward to expanding our long-standing relationship with The Bank of New York.’

COR Financial Solutions is a provider of business solutions to the banking, securities and asset management operations of financial institutions.

JPMorgan provides an electronic tax service for clients covering the full range of investor needs, including ordinary securities in 80 markets, eurodebt obligations, as well as ADRs.

Capital Markets Engineering and Trading, LLC is a privately held firm specialising in balance sheet management for fixed income businesses through the use of repurchase agreements. Three Rivers Securities LLC is its registered broker-dealer which will be engaged in US Treasury and Agency matched book operations.

Since 1998, BNY has had a strategic alliance with Standard Bank of South Africa to provide joint custody solutions to South African investors, and the alliance continues to be a key component of the bank’s growth strategy in the region.

Jervis Smith has been named global sales head of managed funds and pension funds. Prior to his appointment Smith, who joined Citigroup in 1994, held senior sales and relationship management positions focused on fund and asset management clients.

Mary Ambrecht has been named global product head of managed funds and pension funds. Prior to her appointment, Ambrecht served as chief of staff to Frank Bisignano, CEO of Citigroup GTS.

Brits has been involved in the principal securities lending programme at ABN AMRO since its inception in the mid-nineties. In his new role he will also assume management responsibility for the teams supporting collateral management, control & management reporting as well as systems and product support. Brits replaces Frans Visser, who has moved on to new responsibilities within ABN AMRO.

ScottishPower, advised by Hewitt Bacon & Woodrow, undertook a thorough review of its investment arrangements in early 2002 and consequently went on to consider the scheme’s detailed requirements for custody services before selecting Northern Trust. State Street was the previous incumbent.

Paul Mulhern, pensions manager at ScottishPower, said: ‘Northern Trust scored well in a number of key areas when shortlisted. This included industry commitment, technological edge, sub-custodial network, fund manager relationships, pricing, quality of reporting, cash management and regulatory control. The trustees look forward to a professional and effective relationship.’

Condé joins from Linklaters, where he worked in the financial markets group as head of the paralegal unit. He is a technical specialist with over thirteen years’ experience in legal, regulatory and trustee aspects of investment funds. Prior to his time at Linklaters, Condé served at Chase Manhattan Trustees Limited for six years as trustee manager and technical manager.

In total, Euroclear Bank clients are expected to save EUR22m in 2003 as a direct result of fee reductions. This includes the EUR10m reduction in securities borrowing fees implemented on 1 January 2003 and the EUR5m in expected savings resulting from extended money transfer deadlines. Euroclear Bank also paid EUR30m in rebates to clients in January 2003.

‘We were impressed with Mellon’s integrated systems platform, which combines accounting, performance measurement and access to Russell/Mellon Analytics through a single web site,’ said David Fey, treasurer of the LICR Fund. ‘The Mellon technology offers the flexibility to generate a full spectrum of custom reports and to track alternative asset classes. We also like having access to Mellon’s endowment and foundation database so we can gauge how we stack up against a comparable peer group.’

Fortis Prime Fund Solutions provides an integrated package of services to hedge funds and funds-of-funds, without the brokerage and research products associated with prime brokers.

‘Deutsche Börse has rejected the polemics in the current action plan of the European Securities Forum, which calls for the lifting of restrictions applying to clearing and settlement in Germany,’ it thunders. ‘It is common practice for equities transactions to be settled through the respective national central securities depository in the markets of all major European member states, and is valid in the case of the UK, France, the Netherlands and Italy, for example.’

As well as being inaccurate (Euroclear Bank participants can settle French trades through the Brussels ICSD) the statement is also slightly at odds with what Deutsche Börse said when the Giovannini report came out. In April it was much more conciliatory: ‘Deutsche Börse contributed to the report and supports the Giovannini Group's call for the settlement systems to be opened up. Clearstream will continue to be the preferred settlement location for German securities due to its superior offerings. Deutsche Börse regards opening up the settlement systems Europe-wide to allow mutual access as additional business potential in clearing and settlement and is committed to work with other infrastructure providers to further increase the efficiency of cross border settlement.’

Following the withdrawal of NSMD from the custody services business, Generali issued a request for proposal and decided to transfer all its assets to SG, currently custodian for Generali’s other assets (EUR22bn). This reflects Generali's decision to rationalise its facilities and capitalise on its relationship with Société Générale.

SG recently performed extremely well in the R&M Consultants’ global custody survey, coming second overall and topping the investment managers’ category.

Watson Wyatt, which provides specialist custody and review advice to pension funds as part of its investment consulting service, will integrate Thomas Murray’s PROBE (Private Ratings and Operational Benchmarking Evaluation) product into its monitoring process of custodians. PROBE is a business rating that assesses the operational performance of global custodians. The ratings are on a consistent global scale, using the familiar AAA to C ratings methodology.

The decision to appoint ABN AMRO Mellon, the first global custodian to service Oxfordshire County Council, was made after a review of six potential suppliers. The conversion of assets has been completed.

Barry Phillips, assistant county treasurer at Oxfordshire CC, said: ‘We were looking for a global custodian that could provide a complete service offering supported by a personalised approach and that could also demonstrate an established reputation in servicing local authorities. ABN AMRO Mellon fulfils all these requirements and we are looking forward to a long and fruitful working relationship.’

‘We selected Northern Trust because of the firm commitment to the global custody business, their strong securities lending programme, and the innovative and flexible technology platform,’ said Tor Myrvang, IFAD treasurer.

IFAD is a specialised agency of the United Nations with the specific mandate of combating hunger and poverty in the most disadvantaged regions of the world.

The data has been delivered to the FSA’s Markets and Exchanges Division and covers institutional trading costs across twenty-five major markets in the world, including the UK, US, Japan, France, Germany and a selection of emerging markets such as India and South Africa. Transactions are for the period 1998Q1 to 2002Q4 and include some 39 million executions with an average value of just over $500,000 per trade. On a quarterly basis, the FSA will be able to track explicit costs such as commissions, and implicit costs such as market impact and timing.

‘We chose Northern Trust because of their outstanding technology platform, securities lending program, and their strong client service reputation,’ said Robert Newland, deputy director and chief investment officer of the Indiana State Teachers’ Retirement Fund. ‘Northern Trust’s online risk and performance tools were a clear advantage over the competition and will be of great benefit in the management of our plan.’

FX Connect is the established leader in the multi-bank foreign exchange trading industry with a market share estimated at up to 70%. Global Link is currently used by over 400 asset management companies, including 19 of the world’s 20 largest, and offers world market research, analytics and secure, real-time trade execution services across multiple asset classes, including equities, foreign exchange and fixed income.

AFS is one of the few fund administration businesses to receive FSA authorisation to administer UK structures including private equity limited partnerships. In addition, it also has offshore fund administration capabilities through its offices in Guernsey, Jersey and Cayman. The Ansbacher Group is part of the FirstRand Group, one of South Africa's largest financial services groups.

EquiLend also announced that it has facilitated more than $350 billion in stock loans since the electronic platform went live nine months ago.

virt-x and its members can now use the risk management, optional settlement netting and post trade anonymity provided by the CCP service. The pan-European CCP structure will also add significantly to the reduction in cross border trading and settlement costs offered by the virt-x model. Settlement of virt-x trades is offered by CRESTCo, Euroclear Bank and SIS.

ING/BNY Securities Services has been launched as an independent brand and will be headed by Eric Orlans, formerly a member of the management committee of ING Investment Management Europe.

In January, State Street announced that, as part of its agreement to acquire a substantial part of Deutsche Bank's global securities services businesses, it would provide investment services for Deutsche Asset Management with the potential to expand this mandate to its investment management affiliates.

Scudder Investments is the US retail brand for Deutsche Asset Management, which has more than US $740 billion in assets under management.

The outsourcing solutions provided through BNY SmartSource include trade support and fail management, corporate action and proxy services, cash management, derivative margining and collateral management, performance measurement, custodian monitoring, accounting and client reporting.

• Volume for the processing of equity transactions increased 17 percent.
• Fixed income transaction volume was up 25 percent for government securities and 22 percent for mortgage-backed instruments.
• For distribution services, which include mutual funds and insurance transactions, volume was up 15 percent.
• Volume climbed 17 percent in the business of servicing assets held in custody.
• The value of all securities transactions settled through DTCC in 2002 was $917 trillion.

DTCC reported revenue of $906 million in 2002, down eight percent from the previous year, on a pro forma basis. The revenue decline is attributable to a reduction in transaction fees and a shift in the processing of certain mortgage-backed securities transactions to the US Federal Reserve System. DTCC operates on a cost-basis and will periodically reduce fees based on the efficiency of its processing.

Burke joins Cogent from Macquarie Bank where she worked for twenty years, most recently as executive director with responsibility for the Client Contact Centre and Shared Services Division in the Financial Services Group. This covered client contact centres, legal, compliance and risk, finance, human resources and administration, broking services, technology and broking back office. Burke replaces Alexis George, who recently left the firm.

Graham will be responsible for all the market facing functions within the Exchange’s business and the development of all domestic and international markets services. This includes all primary and secondary markets business and client relationships, market operations, market regulation and RNS. This division comprises approximately 250 staff and accounts for more than half of the Exchange’s turnover. Graham joins from WestLB Panmure, where he was global head of equity sales.

As part of the deal, Hewitt will acquire the NTRC business, which provides nearly 200 companies and more than 1 million participants with defined benefit, defined contribution and retiree health and welfare administration services, including recordkeeping and customer service. The arrangement also covers retirement consulting and actuarial services, including plan design and communication. The transaction is expected to close in June.

Specialising in investment administration and supporting systems and processes, Crockett has worked both as an independent consultant and from within DST International and CitiSoft.

Through its Euro Brokers division, Maxcor Financial Inc. is an inter-dealer broker of various securities products, including US Treasury and federal agency bonds, repurchase agreements, emerging market debt and other fixed income securities.

Prior to joining JPM, Parkes was director and head of Deutsche Bank’s global tri-party services. He unexpectedly quit after the takeover of this business as part of State Street’s acquisition of Deutsche Bank’s global securities services business. Shaun was previously with The Bank of New York as global product manager where he spent six years focusing on collateral management applications globally. Prior to this he worked at Chemical Bank as a development analyst in escrow services, focusing on the development of equity collateral capabilities in major European markets.

Mellon European Fund Services will provide accounting services for the schemes' 15 pooled investment funds. The pension schemes have over 300,000 members, and more than 20 investment managers are involved in the management of total assets valued at approximately GBP12bn. The funds will be serviced from one of Mellon's administrative centres in Essex, and will be converted to Mellon's accounting platform in July 2003. CSTIM Ltd, specialist management consultants in the investment management industry, assisted Railpen in the selection process for the investment accounting mandate.

Malcolm Gray, finance director of Railpen Investments, said: ‘We operate a large and sophisticated investment structure for our schemes, so it was particularly important for us to identify a partner who could demonstrate the flexibility to develop a solution that met our specific needs. Throughout the selection process, Mellon has demonstrated the quality and value adding components of its accounting service offering.’

CMS will become part of Misys Wholesale Banking Systems and be renamed Misys CMS. The core management team – including CTO Raymond English, sales and marketing director Gil Bray, VP Cynthia Anasson and product manager John Hawkins, will be among more than 50 staff transferring to Misys Wholesale Banking Systems. International offices will be merged with existing Misys offices in New York, London, Tokyo and Singapore.

The acquisition is for $13m in cash. Citigroup said: ‘While Crossmar Matching Service is an innovative and successful service, after reviewing our long-term goals, we determined that this service is not in line with our core business strategy.’

She joins from State Street in Singapore where she was its client service team leader. Prior to that, she was the operations manager at Koeneman Capital Management.

17APR03: +++NEW RESULTS SERVICE+++

Quarterly results from four specialist global custodians - State Street, The Bank of New York, Mellon and Northern Trust - are now on a special page on the website. To access Q1 2003 numbers, go to the Results page by following the link: www.scrip-issue.co.uk/website/results.htm

‘Deutsche Börse contributed to the report and supports the Giovannini Group's call for the settlement systems to be opened up. Clearstream will continue to be the preferred settlement location for German securities due to its superior offerings. Deutsche Börse regards opening up the settlement systems Europe-wide to allow mutual access as additional business potential in clearing and settlement and is committed to work with other infrastructure providers to further increase the efficiency of cross border settlement.’

Click on Giovannini Report to go to the report on the Europa website.

Fox will report to Bill Tomko, president of the BISYS Investment Services group, and will be based in Boston. Prior to joining BISYS, Fox was president and chief executive officer of govONE Solutions, a subsidiary of First Data Corporation. He was formerly vice chairman at PFPC Inc., the mutual fund services company of PNC Financial Services Group, Inc., and was a member of the board for PFPC Worldwide Inc.

‘We selected CIBC Mellon because their technology supports our desire to move towards a more integrated online work process,’ said Patrick K. Walsh, president and chief executive officer at SEI Investments. ‘We also have a high level of confidence in the quality and experience of the people at CIBC Mellon.’

The first leg of the programme — which is already under way — is to bring down direct controllable expenses. The remainder of the reductions will be achieved through staff reductions of up to 1,800 people, in addition to the reduction of 1,000 people previously announced in connection with the GSS acquisition.

State Street plans to reduce staff at all levels of the organisation, and aims to achieve the majority of the staff reductions through voluntary early retirement and enhanced severance programs. The company's workforce has more than doubled during the past ten years and today stands at over 22,000 worldwide (including 3,000 people who were part of the Deutsche Bank GSS acquisition). The company anticipates that severance benefits and expenses related to the reductions will result in a pre-tax charge of between $125-$175m and decrease reported second-quarter diluted earnings per share by approximately $0.25 to $0.35 per share.

‘We are positioning State Street for improved profitability,’ said David Spina, chairman and CEO of State Street Corporation. ‘Keeping our company financially strong — and building on our leadership position in global financial markets — will enable us to take advantage of the many opportunities we see in the market today. Our top priorities are to continue to help our clients find ways to succeed in meeting their investment and business goals and to serve the best interests of our stockholders and employees. We are continuing to invest in strategic initiatives that are important to our future growth.’

Tee worked for Clearstream Hong Kong in a variety of sales and client services functions covering clients in Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Taiwan, and South East Asia. Prior to that, he worked for DBS Bank Singapore.

Tony Leung will provide specialist support in risk management and performance analytics to Northern Trust clients in the Asia Pacific region. Leung joins from AIG Investment Corporation, where he was an associate director, investment performance analytics.

Joe joins DrKW from Metropolitan West Securities, a third-party securities lending agent, where he was senior vice president of sales and institutional client services. Prior to joining MetWest in 2001, he was a director in the equity finance group at Credit Suisse First Boston. Earlier in his career, Joe spent 16 years with Chase Manhattan Bank, where he was vice president and chief marketing officer for the global securities lending product.

Jan Willem Baan, director of investments for TKP Pensioen, said: ‘They have a real customer focus, a comprehensive product offering and, very importantly, superior technology. We conducted a lengthy and thorough due diligence before we came to our decision. This appointment is in line with our vigorous growth strategy with AEGON Nederland N.V.’ AEGON recently acquired TKP Pensioen as a vehicle to access more pension funds. TKP Pensioen currently services seven pension funds including those of KPN and TPG.

The DTCC board has elected Don Donahue to assume the role of chief operating officer, as well as taking on the other titles and responsibilities held by Dirks. Donahue, 52, is a 17-year veteran of DTCC and, previously, DTC. He has been managing director for technology, strategy and product development since 1999.

‘Northern Trust was selected because they have strong web-based capabilities and are able to meet our complex plan accounting needs from both a financial and performance reporting perspective,’ said Paul Klinck, vice president, treasury services of Catholic Health East. ‘In addition, we developed a good relationship with the Northern team and have confidence in their ability to service our relationship.’

With combined total revenues of $4.3bn and $5.2bn in total assets, Catholic Health East is one of the nation’s largest Catholic health care systems.

Fund WorldView now will have its fund prices and returns updated daily, along with Morningstar's Star Ratings and Style Boxes, more cross-fund comparison capabilities, and a new feature that enables comprehensive analysis of the consolidated holdings of an entire user-created portfolio of funds.

The Commission states:

‘The events under investigation concern clearing and settlement for registered shares, which have taken a growing importance in Germany since 1997. There is evidence that Clearstream refused Euroclear Bank access to the settlement platform for registered shares in Germany for more than two years. In the Commission's view, there is no justification for such a long period between the request for access and the actual granting of this access. The Commission considers that Clearstream's behaviour had the effect of limiting cross-border trade in such securities, while Clearstream was at the same time establishing a competing cross-border operation.

‘Further evidence suggests that Clearstream Banking AG's dilatory behaviour contrasts with the short delay within which other customers received access to the same application. In the Commission's view, such short delays constitute the normal industry practice.

‘The discrimination also extended to pricing. Until January 2002 Clearstream Banking AG charged a higher per transaction price to Euroclear than to national Central Securities Depositories outside Germany. In the Commission's view, there is no justification for the difference in treatment. Among other factors, the transaction volumes and the level of automation are higher for Euroclear than for national Central Securities Depositories.’

Simon Hudson-Lund becomes managing director of administration services, responsible for client relations and administration for all full and shared service clients. Hudson-Lund is currently managing director of Legal & General’s unit trust operations, and will join IFDS on 1st June. Paul O’Neil has been appointed managing director of Cofunds Ltd. and will oversee the ongoing conversion activities while retaining responsibility for remote (ASP) IFDS clients. Paul Roberts has been promoted to managing director of information technology, marketing, product development and sales for IFDS.

Earlier this year, IFDS and Cofunds announced the acquisition by IFDS of a significant ownership interest in Cofunds, the IFA fund supermarket.

Mark Murray, chief operating officer at Artemis, said, ‘We are firm believers in outsourcing key business functions to specialists in their field and look forward to adopting further service enhancements offered by The Bank of New York in the future.’

The company says: ‘The sustained market downturn has severely limited the prospects for product development. Accordingly, Iain is leaving to pursue his interests in infrastructure and policy questions in European markets. Computershare thanks Iain for his contribution and wishes him every success in his future endeavours.’

Saville will remain a non-executive director of Computershare Limited. An external search for a replacement has begun.

JPMIS will take on $12bn of assets covering more than 50 of ISIS' retail collective investment funds. JPMorgan Trustee Services will act as the depositary and trustee for the funds. Under the mandate JPMIS will provide additional products, including analytical services, Total Cost Management, investment guideline compliance monitoring and short-term investment funds.

‘JPMorgan's strong track record in the mutual fund arena and their expertise and leading service capabilities will support our goal to be one of the top five UK fund managers by 2005,’ said ISIS Asset Management chief operating officer Ken Back.

ISIS Asset Management was formed from the merger of Friends Ivory & Sime with Royal Sun Alliance Investment Management Limited. It is one of the UK's 10 largest investment companies, with approximately GBP60bn assets under management.

Hartford-based Phoenix Life and State Street have worked together for over 20 years. This new mandate is in addition to $8 billion in assets for which State Street provides custody and related services.

Founded in 1982, CRFS is a Chicago-based provider of commission recapture, transition management and third-party services to plan sponsors and investment managers. CRFS is wholly owned by Capital Resource Holdings, Inc.

CRFS clients will be serviced by BNY Plan Services, the division of BNY Brokerage that provides commission recapture and transition management services. CRFS president Shauna Lambright will become senior vice president of BNY Plan Services and will continue to be responsible for business development and client relations for the CRFS client base.

David Spina, chairman and chief executive officer, said: ‘To address this adverse environment, we are systematically reducing spending during the second quarter to reflect the lower level of revenue. We are planning to implement operational efficiencies that involve system consolidations as well as staff reductions and delays in hiring. Meanwhile, we are maintaining spending required to support our clients' needs and are continuing to invest in business initiatives that are essential to our strategy for long-term growth. We are strengthening our presence in Europe, expanding our investment servicing capabilities to meet the needs of hedge funds and wealth managers, and extending our considerable trading franchise to include equities.’

The solution, which Omgeo intends to refer to as Deal Time STP, will allow for the automation of allocations earlier in the trade cycle and enable firms to process trades, from inception through to settlement, using a single connection and leveraging common industry standards. It will also enable investment managers to send automated FIX allocations to Omgeo’s community of broker-dealers, irrespective of the broker-dealers’ current ability to process FIX allocations.

The fund, Merrill Lynch Global Selects Portfolios plc, was approved by the Central Bank of Ireland in December 2002, and was launched in February 2003. It initially includes 42 portfolios representing 23 mandate categories, including equity, fixed income, and short-term securities. The fund is currently being offered by Merrill Lynch on a limited private offering basis but is in the process of being registered for public sale in a number of key markets, principally in Europe and Asia.

Mark DeSario, director of marketing and product development for Merrill's International Managed Assets Group, said: ‘We believe BISYS offers the best-of-breed transfer agency services that support our fundamental commitment to quality. BISYS' ability to support third-party distribution for us was a key factor in our selection process.’

Stephen B. Timbers and Mark Stevens become vice chairmen of Northern Trust Corporation and The Northern Trust Company. Timbers will continue in his role as president of Northern Trust Global Investments, a position he has held since 1998. Stevens will assume new responsibilities coordinating strategic corporate expansion opportunities and business development activities.

Peter Rossiter takes on the newly created position of executive vice president – corporate risk management, where he will oversee and develop the processes for monitoring, measuring and managing all non-credit risks across the corporation. He will continue to serve on the management committee. Frederick Waddell, who now heads Northern’s wealth management group in PFS, will succeed Rossiter as president - corporate and institutional services (C&IS) and will become a member of Northern’s management committee. Steven Bell will become head of wealth management.

Amongst many other changes, there are a couple of notable names. Dave Blowers, who is currently president of Northern Trust’s Illinois north region, will become president of PFS Illinois. Blowers was formerly general manager of the London office. Bill Dodds, another former London chief, has been named as treasurer of the corporation.

‘BBH stood out as a premier provider with services that will greatly impact the bottom line for our shareholders,’ said Patrick Bannigan, managing director of Touchstone Investments. ‘We have confidence that the firm’s ability to align its intelligent, creative and effective solutions with our goals of expense reduction and asset attraction will help us continue to excel in the marketplace.’

Keith Morris, chairman of Sabre said: ‘Our decision to appoint National was influenced by the commitment they have shown to the small to mid sized fund sector and their positive approach to addressing all our requirements throughout the selection process.’

Sabre appointed Thomas Murray, the research-based global custodian consultancy, ratings and information services group, to conduct a review of service providers.

Tony Johnson has been appointed global head of sales and relationship management. Johnson returns to RBC after a brief spell as head of Europe for BISYS, the fund administration outsourcing provider. Johnson will also be based in London.

Steve Bernstein will head securities services. He was most recently head of business continuity for Citigroup. Bernstein joined Salomon Brothers 20 years ago and was made a managing director in 1995. He spent five years in Tokyo where he was chief administrative officer for the Nikko Salomon Smith Barney joint venture.

Chris Foskett will be head of the overall global sales and marketing effort, as well as head of the corporates group. He ran the global relationship bank's insurance and investment industry group where he was responsible for Citibank's insurance, investment management, pensions and healthcare relationships worldwide. He joined Citibank in 1991.

Sandy Jaffee will head the financial institutions customer group, which will look after fund managers, broker-dealers, insurance companies, banks and pension funds. Jaffee has been head of global securities services since 1995.

‘This is a successful business, but it is not a core bank business offering,’ a statement said. ‘For this reason, an extensive review was conducted and the decision was taken to divest the business.’

‘Throughout our relationship, State Street has understood and met our needs. They have provided tailored solutions to some of our most complex requirements,’ said John Crocker, chief executive officer of HOOPP.

As head of sales and marketing, Information Services, Roberto Rivero will work with Young to increase revenues from existing and new products. Rivero has been providing strategic advice on the potential growth of the Exchange's Information Services business for the past year. Prior to joining the Exchange, he was marketing director – fidessaNet at royalblue financial. Young and Rivero will both report to the Exchange's chief information officer, David Lester.

Guy Whittle has started as head of sales and product management within the Exchange's Market Services division. His responsibilities include identifying new customers for the Exchange's products and services, such as RSP Gateway, Crest network provision, covered warrants, and ETFs, as well as managing existing secondary market client relationships. Whittle was most recently responsible for running Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein's wholesale and retail equity business on Bestconnect, as well as developing client and information vendor relationships. He will report to the new post of director of Market Services, for which the Exchange is currently recruiting.

Fallon has been with BBH since 1986. In 1999 she was appointed as a department head of BBH’s custody client service group, where she was also responsible for organisational strategy. Prior to that, she served as assistant department head for the US relationship management group where she was responsible for many of BBH’s largest client relationships.

Fair & Clear is spearheaded by Citibank and BNP Paribas, the two banks most threatened by Euroclear’s move into the sub-custody business. Its paper sets out the need for change and deconstructs many of the arguments assembled by Euroclear to support is case for further consolidation. Fair and Clear’s major recommendations include:

• CSD, ICSD and agent banking entities should be formally separated and operate at arm’s length, to ensure appropriate governance and to allow a level playing field amongst infrastructures and amongst market participants;
• Competition rules to be enforced by isolating the essential infrastructure facilities from commercial services;
• Regulation to be consistent with the role actually played by an institution. Banks that are infrastructures should not benefit from privileged or preferential treatment.

A full analysis of the paper will be posted on the site shortly.

State Street will provide accounting and fund administration services for 64 funds, representing more than GBP11bn in assets. ‘Our decision to appoint State Street was the result of an extensive due diligence and reflects our appreciation of their commitment to the investor services business and their depth of experience in fund accounting and administration,’ said Hugh Mullan, global COO for Schroders Retail. ‘State Street’s fund accounting and fund administration capabilities, combined with their rigorous risk and compliance management services meet the high standards Schroders expects from its service partners.’

It been appointed global custodian for Alecta, the largest manager of pension assets in the Nordic region with $35bn in assets under management. Northern Trust will provide global custody services for $8bn in global assets, as well as securities lending, commission recapture and trade settlement services.

Commenting on the appointment, Gary Matheny, manager of Alecta Investment Management, said: ‘Alecta spent over a year in its global custody review. Once the field was narrowed to a few custodians, we spent much time and effort in going through the remaining candidates in detail. Once we neared the final decision, it became clear that Northern Trust offered the best fit. Northern Trust were at the top in all areas, including best value for the money and a professional organisation that fits Alecta and its goals very well. Northern’s system solutions should also improve Alecta’s efficiencies. We are looking forward to working with Northern Trust and see our relationship as a partnership more than simply working with a service provider.’

Following a number of strategic changes to its investment arrangements, Royal Liver Assurance Limited has appointed Northern Trust as its first-ever global custodian to assets totalling GBP2.5bn. Royal Liver, advised by Watson Wyatt, has undergone a review of its investment arrangements during the last 12 months and, as a result, identified the requirement for a global custodian. Ian Longley, investment and treasury manager for Royal Liver, noted that ‘a superb relationship, exceeding all expectations, has been created with Northern Trust’.

‘We are extremely pleased to partner with State Street, a leader in servicing public funds,’ said Gary W. Anderson, executive director of the Texas Municipal Retirement System. ‘Their high-calibre client service team and responsiveness to our needs were major factors in our selection of State Street as our servicing partner. We look forward to leveraging State Street's experience and specialised expertise in supporting internally managed funds, like ours, and to working with the world's leading securities lender as we design and execute a lending programme that is right for us.’

Anneli Peshkoff, director of EIB's Treasury Department said: ‘The outsourcing of the collateral management is important for improving the management of the counterparty risk of the bank’s substantial derivatives portfolio by moving to daily mark to market and margin calls of the collateral. The decision to outsource is based on an analysis of the incremental resources required internally versus the cost and flexibility of outsourcing.’

The First American Funds is one of the largest fund families in the US, managing over $53bn in open-end fund assets. ‘We are extremely pleased to partner with State Street, who we are fully confident will enhance the high-quality service we received from Deutsche Bank over the last several years,’ said Robert H. Nelson, chief operating officer of U.S. Bancorp Asset Management.

‘BBH’s reputation in the industry and its strategic view of relationships truly separated the firm from the field of competitors,’ said Jeff Vogelbacker, managing director of Trusco Capital Management. ‘The bank has consistently demonstrated that its commitments to fund servicing and to client service are of the highest priority, and we look forward to enjoying an extended, mutually beneficial relationship.’

Trusco Capital Management, Inc., based in Atlanta, Georgia, an affiliate of SunTrust Banks, Inc., manages $45bn in assets serves as the advisor to the STI Classic Funds, which has $25bn in assets across 40 funds.

Anthony Squibb, Kingston’s assistant director of treasury services, said: ‘We were impressed with the professional approach of Clydesdale and their willingness to provide a flexible range of services that addressed our immediate needs.’

The service is capable of handling securities from most markets. Operationally, Euroclear France will receive instructions from both the ETF promoter (or its transfer agent) and the ETF subscriber, and will automatically generate the appropriate settlement instructions for the ETF's underlying securities. Simultaneous DVP settlement occurs as the subscriber delivers the underlying securities to the ETF promoter (or their transfer agent) and receives the ETF shares in return, or vice versa, on a book-entry basis at Euroclear France. The counterparties can follow the progress of their transactions, as well as their share and cash account balances, in real time through their RGV workstation or their e-RGV internet terminal.

The European plan will see Edinburgh continue as a major centre, focused on fund administration, performance measurement and securities operations. The bank has also designated Edinburgh as the site of the company's European continuous back-up centre for securities operations. London will remain a primary investment management, investment servicing and securities lending centre. In Germany it will try to expand its market share and leverage Deutsche’s Depotbank business. In Ireland, State Street will maintain its significant presence and continue to offer investment fund services.

In the US, State Street will transition the acquired operations to State Street facilities. Under the integration plan, former Deutsche Bank operations in Jersey City and Nashville will be transitioned to State Street's US servicing platform. Both the Jersey City and Nashville sites will close in the third quarter of 2004, and client service and client management will move to New York where State Street will maintain a presence, consolidating operations in new premises in lower Manhattan. The company expects to reduce its overall workforce, primarily in the US, over a 12-18 month period beginning in June 2003, by approximately 1,000 employees.

In Asia Pacific, Singapore will become the site of a major operations centre for Southeast Asia, leveraging Deutsche Bank's presence in the region.

dit is one of the largest fund managers in Germany, with around €30bn of assets under management, and has actively participated in securities lending since the early 1990s.

As part of the deal, Holger Genuneit, a senior trader at dit, will transfer with the business to DrKW where he will become head of trading for DrKW’s agency securities lending desk in Frankfurt for both fixed income & equities. In this new role, he will report to Jay Schreyer, head of international trading, based in London.

State Street Bank GmbH will provide Deutscher Ring Versicherungen with fund administration and accounting, compliance, securities processing, safekeeping and recording, and reporting services. Deutscher Ring Versicherungen is made up of five affiliates - three insurance companies, a building saving society and a financial services company - that provide more than two million individuals with asset accumulation, health insurance and retirement services. State Street has a long relationship with Deutsche Ring's parent company, Basler Group.

Dov Schlein, a managing partner at NuVerse Advisors LLC, said, ‘After a thorough evaluation process, we selected The Bank of New York to provide fund administration services because of its long-term commitment to the overall fund servicing business. We were impressed with the expertise of the bank’s staff and the range of services they offer for the hedge fund industry.’

With 500,000 members and $49bn in total assets, Ohio PERS, based in Columbus, is the nation's tenth largest state-wide pension fund and the 18^th largest pension fund internationally. State Street will provide Ohio PERS with a full range of services including daily valuation, performance attribution, consolidated reporting, global securities lending and master record keeping.

State Street now services over 40% of the public fund business in the United States, with clients in 32 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

The new service will initially support transactions in about 1,000 German equities in collective safe custody and tradable on Xetra. Plans call for an expansion of the CCP functional capacity and the number of securities in further releases.

BISYS has been selected to provide fund accounting, administration and transfer agency services for the One Group Global Funds, which were launched in November 2002. The funds are domiciled in Dublin and serviced by BISYS’ Dublin-based fund services platform.

Banc One Investment Advisors also extended its outsourcing relationship. BISYS will continue supporting the Infinity Offshore Series Fund, a Cayman Island-domiciled money market fund, with accounting, administration and transfer agency services. BISYS also will support the intermediate bond fund and a diversified equity fund, which are planned for near-term launch, with this same suite of services.

His responsibilities have been taken on by executive vice president Jim Colvin. Colvin joined FMC in 1980, and has managed FMC's US and European operations, as well as its software development group.

‘Cost efficiency and flexible accounting system linkage were the decisive factors for us,’ said Stéphane Prunet-Sharma, CEO of AXA Investment Managers Deutschland GmbH. ‘Technical aspects dominate the custody business. Within a narrow time frame JPMorgan developed a state-of-the-art interface for the custody and management of securities and processing of payment transactions which was able to satisfy our needs.’

BNY will take on all operations and accounting functions of ING Investment Management Americas’ managed accounts business, as well as the technology infrastructure to support the business. The ING Managed Account Group is the marketing, sales, and service organisation for ING Investment Management’s managed account offerings and currently administers more than 30,000 accounts with over $7bn in assets. Among the operational functions to be assumed by BNY are account opening and maintenance, trade support and reconciliation. In addition, many of ING Investment Management’s operations managers and staff will transfer to BNY.

Michael Delfino, president and chief executive officer of the ING Managed Account Group, said, ‘This agreement represents another major step towards making ING Investment Management a prominent leader in the managed account business. Our decision to outsource to The Bank of New York was based on the bank’s ability to provide its clients with a high degree of service and its innovative solutions. Our clients will be well served by The Bank of New York, one of the world’s foremost experts in investment management outsourcing solutions. More importantly, as we leverage The Bank of New York’s operational expertise, we will be able to focus more of our efforts on providing our clients with a broader array of high-quality investment, sales, marketing, and client-centric services.’

This agreement is a further extension of a broad global partnership between ING and BNY. Last year ING Barings outsourced its back office to BNY, and the two are also in the process of establishing a sales and marketing joint venture for global custody in Europe.

ING Investment Management Americas has over $150bn in assets under management. Headquartered in Amsterdam, ING is one of the world’s largest global financial institutions and is a market leader in the field of insurance, banking and asset management. ING has more than 50 million customers, over 110,000 employees in 65 countries and assets under management exceeding $485bn.

GSS had approximately $2.2trn in assets under custody as of August 31, 2002, but that figure is likely to have shrunk as a result of falling markets and defecting clients. State Street has also acquired fund administration and Depotbank services, securities lending capabilities, performance measurement services (through the WM Company) and benefit payments services, as well as UK and US-based domestic custody and securities clearing operations. Approximately 3,200 Deutsche Bank staff members around the world have become State Street employees.

As part of the acquisition agreement, State Street will also provide global investment services to Deutsche Bank entities including Deutsche Asset Management (DeAM). Under this ten-year agreement, subject to fiduciary approval, State Street will provide custody, fund administration, accounting and global securities lending with the potential to expand the mandate to DeAM's investment management affiliates. Approximately 25% of total GSS revenues during the eight-month period to August 31, 2002 came from DeAM.

The 2003 restructuring costs associated with the acquisition are expected to be $90-110m on a pre-tax basis, approximately half of which will be recorded in the first quarter and the balance over the last three quarters of the year. Based on the annualised costs of the acquired businesses for the eight-month period ended August 31, 2002, State Street expects to achieve cost reductions in the acquired businesses of approximately $125-$150m in 2003.

‘We conducted an initial review of six leading providers which we then narrowed down to three finalists,’ said John Rice, head of customer services at Insight Investment. ‘Northern Trust were selected on the basis of their flexibility, their commitment to Insight and their competitive bid’. Insight Investment Management is the asset manager of HBOS plc.

Inalytics has also hired Sandro Lunghi to strengthen the reporting and consultancy function of the business. Sandro worked in the fund management industry for 15 years, specialising in quantitative analysis, European equities and more recently client servicing and reporting. He will present and analyse the new TCA reports to clients.

Last August, Inalytics formed an alliance with the PlexusGroup, the US TCA provider owned by JPMorgan Investor Services.

• Eliminate paper and automate communication, data capture and enrichment
• Harmonise messaging standards and communications protocols
• Develop and implement reference data standards
• Synchronise timing between different clearing and settlement systems and associated payment and foreign exchange systems
• Automate and standardise institutional trade matching
• Expand the use of central counterparties
• Permit securities lending and borrowing to expedite settlement
• Automate and standardise asset servicing processes, including corporate actions, tax relief arrangements, and restrictions on foreign ownership
• Ensure the financial integrity of providers of clearing and settlement services
• Reinforce the risk management practices of users of clearing and settlement service providers
• Ensure final, simultaneous transfer and availability of assets
• Ensure effective business continuity and disaster recovery planning
• Address the possibility of failure of a systematically important institution
• Strengthen the assessment of the enforceability of contracts
• Advance legal certainty over rights to securities, cash, or collateral
• Recognise and support improved valuation and close-out netting arrangements
• Ensure appointment of appropriately experienced and senior board members
• Promote fair access to securities clearing and settlement networks
• Ensure equitable and effective attention to stakeholders’ interests
• Encourage consistent regulation and oversight of securities clearing and settlement service providers

John Ostaszewski, treasurer for Applera Corporation, said, ‘We chose Northern over the competition because of their outstanding technology platform, and their Global Investor Passport client portal. Northern is a quality organisation with the right mix of products and services for our exacting needs.’

State Street will provide trade support and settlement, portfolio record keeping, custodian communications for settlements, and systems network and applications support. As part of the agreement, State Street will migrate SLAM (Belgium) to its technology platform, from which SLAM (Belgium) will receive additional services such as performance measurement, and post-trade compliance. Value of the assets was not disclosed.

William Carey, joint chief executive, stated, ‘After reviewing competitive alternatives, we selected BISYS as the provider most closely aligned with our own philosophies, and most importantly, our high touch service approach. We believe that BISYS' consultative style complemented by a dedicated service team will enable us to generate higher levels of organisational and operational efficiency, enhance the service levels to our clients, and reduce future investment in our non-core infrastructure.’

‘We are pleased to be working with State Street,’ said Viv Tierney, financial controller and secretary to the Trustee of Tate & Lyle. ‘After a thorough review of the major providers, we selected State Street as we felt they were best placed to meet our particular requirements. We also value State Street’s commitment to continuing to grow and expand in Europe over the long term.’

Under the terms of the agreement, BNY will pay a purchase price of $2bn in cash, representing a premium of $1.4bn over book value. The amount may be adjusted higher by up to $50m based on the level of Pershing’s 2003 revenue growth. The purchase price will be financed from the public issuance of debt and equity, currently estimated to be approximately $900m and $1.1bn, respectively. The transaction is expected to close by the end of the second quarter of 2003.

Headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey, Pershing has approximately 4,000 employees worldwide at 13 locations in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Pershing has a client base of more than 850 broker-dealers and investment managers and supports approximately 100,000 investment professionals at these firms. This client base represents more than 5 million customer accounts. Pershing holds approximately $400bn of total customer assets, including $160bn of money market and mutual fund assets.

Tom Renyi, chairman and chief executive officer of BNY, said: ‘Strategically, Pershing is an exceptional fit for The Bank of New York’s global franchise. Not only does it augment our fastest growing business segment, but it also builds upon our three core strengths –innovative product capabilities, a well-diversified global client base, and extensive product distribution network. This strengthens our position as the premier global securities services provider and accelerates the continuing transformation of our business model.’