2006 News Archive

27DEC06: State Street has elected three European nationals - Peter Coym, retired head of Lehman Brothers Bankhaus AG, Amelia Fawcett, former vice chair and chief operating officer of Morgan Stanley International, and Maureen Miskovic, chair of Eurasia Group - to its board of directors. State Street also announced the appointment of three vice chairmen: Jay Hooley, global head of investment servicing and investment research and trading, Bill Hunt, president and chief executive officer of State Street Global Advisors, and Joe Antonellis, chief information officer.

Jim Phalen, currently head of investment servicing in North America, will take on a new role as head of international operations for investment servicing and investment research and trading. Phalen will relocate to Europe to assume his new role and will report to Jay Hooley.

22DEC06: JPMorgan has been appointed to provide global custody and accounting services for the Ohio Treasurer of State’s Office. The mandate, which covers USD14.5bn of global assets, is in addition to the domestic custody business that JPMorgan already handles. Ohio has USD92bn of assets.

22DEC06: Acropole Asset Management, the first investment manager in France exclusively dedicated to the management of convertible bonds, has selected BNP Paribas Securities Services as global custodian and fund administrator. BNP Paribas will also provide investment compliance monitoring and transfer agency services. Created in September 2006, Acropole AM currently manages approximately EUR180m million.

19DEC06: BNP Paribas Securities Services has completed the transition of Deutsche Asset Management’s (DeAM) UK back and middle offices following DeAM’s acquisition by Aberdeen Asset Management (AAM) from Deutsche Bank last year.

AAM is one of the UK’s largest asset management firms and manages approximately GBP74bn. When AAM completed its DeAM purchase at the end of 2005, the company chose to outsource DeAM’s fund accounting, administration, performance and client reporting services to BNP Paribas. BNP Paribas and AAM used Alpha fmc to assist them in the programme management.

19DEC06: Euroclear has announced EUR78m in annualised tariff reductions in 2007. In addition, Euroclear Bank clients will receive EUR45m in fee rebates in early 2007, relative to the amount of safekeeping, settlement and securities-lending business they have placed with Euroclear Bank in 2006.

In the UK, CRESTCo has announced a rebate of GBP7.5m, around 10pct of fees received in 2006. The rebate will be paid in a lump sum to each client in early 2007, based on the transactional fees paid by the client in 2006.

19DEC06: Euronext, the pan-European stock exchange, has agreed to acquire 51pct of SecFinex, a European electronic trading platform for securities lending. Subject to the approval of relevant authorities, the acquisition should be completed in the first quarter of 2007.

Launched in 2000, the SecFinex platform provides securities lending traders with secure access to a live price-driven marketplace. A cross-section of lenders, borrowers and intermediaries, including some of the major securities lending players in Europe, currently participate in SecFinex. SecFinex is to remain an independent company, with Euronext represented on its managing board. The other main shareholders are Société Générale and Fortis.

19DEC06: BNP Paribas Securities Services has appointed Chris Adams as global product head, alternative funds. Based in Luxembourg, Adams will report to Frederic Perard, head of product, global fund services. Prior to joining BNP Paribas, Adams was a regional director with management consultancy CSTIM Ltd in Luxembourg.

18DEC06: Old Mutual Asset Managers in South Africa and JPMorgan Worldwide Securities Services have reached agreement for the outsourcing of OMAM’s investment administration operations in South Africa. The deal will cover core investment administration services, including trade support, fund accounting and reporting, which are expected to be transferred to JPMorgan by the end of next year. Under the terms of the agreement, JPMorgan will take on more than 100 of OMAM’s employees.

OMAM is the largest private asset manager in South Africa with R370bn (USD53bn) in assets under management and is a part of the Old Mutual Plc Group. Last year JPMorgan signed a USD14bn global custody deal with Old Mutual Financial Network in the US. In the UK, Old Mutual Asset Managers has an outsourcing arrangement with RBC Dexia.

JPMorgan has more than 400 staff in South Africa, split between Cape Town and Johannesburg. In 2004 it bought TASC Administration, a fund administration company with operations in South Africa and Ireland. At the end of 2005 JPMorgan announced that it had signed contracts with RMB Asset Management and Futuregrowth Asset Management for the outsourcing of their investment operations for their South African and international assets.

In April 2005 OMAM South Africa withdrew from a proposed deal with The Bank of New York and Standard Bank of South Africa to create an investment administration company in South Africa, to which OMAM would have outsourced its operations.

18DEC06: The International Securities Lending Association (ISLA) has hired David Rule, currently head of sterling money markets at the Bank of England and chairman of the securities lending and repo committee, to manage a consultancy project to define ISLA's development needs. ISLA believes that it can no longer operate in its current form and that it may need a full time chief executive with support staff and offices.

18DEC06: Edward Resch, executive vice president and chief financial officer at State Street, is to take on the additional title of treasurer. Resch has had management responsibility for the treasury function in his role as CFO for the past four years. He will take on the title from Ed O’ Brien, who has left State Street for personal reasons.

13DEC06: BNP Paribas Securities Services has been appointed depository bank and fund administrator by Algebra Partners, the first independent hedge fund manager in Spain to be accredited by the CNMV, the Spanish securities market regulator. BNP Paribas will provide fund accounting, NAV calculation and investment compliance monitoring for the firm’s recently launched Cygnus fund. BNP Paribas will also prepare regulatory reporting for the fund as well as provide a customised client reporting solution for Algebra’s own clients.

12DEC06: Northern Trust has been appointed to provide domestic and global custody, performance measurement, treasury management and banking services for the John A. Hartford Foundation. Transition of the USD655m fund is scheduled for January 2007.

12DEC06: Mellon has appointed Stephen Trott and Chris Cecil for its client relationship management team in the UK. Trott joins as a senior client relationship executive, based at the firm’s Brentwood office, and will focus on managing transfer agency and fund accounting clients. Trott was UK asset management sales director at DST International. Cecil will be based in Edinburgh as a client relationship executive. He moves from his post as head of client service delivery at Mellon, where he oversaw the implementation of the transfer agency service delivery team and the creation of the institutional client services team.

12DEC06: BNP Paribas Securities Services in Australia has won the mandate to provide unit registry, fund administration and custody services for MMC Asset Management Limited’s managed fund portfolios and listed investment company. MMC manages over AUD600 million of assets under management. Custody was previously provided by ANZ and administration by MacKenzie Coultas Funds Administration.

12DEC06: Euroclear has finalised an agreement to acquire EMXCo, a provider of mutual fund order routing in the UK. Tim May, chief executive officer of CRESTCo, who will become chairman of EMXCo, said: “We are taking a major step forward in transforming the operational infrastructure for the fund industry that will deliver real and meaningful benefits. Processing for UK mutual funds is plagued with inefficiencies, high costs and risks largely due to manual intervention. Together, Euroclear and EMXCo intend to eliminate the operational burdens impeding the UK fund market’s ability to operate efficiently and cost effectively.”

12DEC06: JPMorgan Worldwide Securities Services has completed its investment operations outsourcing arrangement with Barclays Global Investors for the majority of BGI’s European business.

The agreement, which was originally struck in 2004, covers derivatives servicing and valuation, transfer agency, custody, portfolio valuation, client reporting, administration and fund accounting functions for the full range of BGI funds domiciled in the UK, Dublin, Jersey and Luxembourg. JPMorgan already provides securities lending and custody for BGI’s UK funds.

07DEC06: Modern Asset Management, a private wealth management firm which started life at the beginning of 2006, has selected JPMorgan to provide separately managed account administration, unified managed account administration and advanced execution services for its high net worth investment clients.

JPMorgan will provide middle and back office services, including shadow accounting, reconciliation, new account setup, performance calculation and account maintenance. JPMorgan will be providing services to Modern as an asset manager and as a sponsor. In addition, J.P. Morgan Securities will provide Modern with electronic execution products.

06DEC06: KAS BANK is reorganising its UK branch. Laurens Vis will become managing director of the branch, responsible for general management. Vis will report to Hans Kadiks, the managing board member responsible for marketing, sales and relationship management.

As of 1 January 2007, Peter Rouwen will be appointed UK financial institutions team leader and Camiel Janmaat will be appointed UK client support team leader. Laurens Vis will temporarily fill the role of UK institutional investors team leader.

KAS BANK recently strengthened its UK institutional investors team with the appointment of Marga Wenting and Petra Olsson as relationship managers, and Andrew Caird as sales manager.

06DEC06: RBC Dexia Investor Services and CI Financial Income Fund have agreed to extend their investor services outsourcing relationship by five years, through to mid-2011. Under this outsourcing arrangement, RBC Dexia will continue to provide custody, fund accounting and securities lending services to CI Financial and will act for Assante Wealth Management as the primary custodian for the private clients of Stonegate Private Counsel and United Financial Corporation.

RBC Dexia claims that this outsourcing relationship with CI Financial is the largest of its kind in the Canadian market, with RBC Dexia providing custody and investment administration services for CI's investment fund assets totalling CAD62bn, which includes all CI assets under management, as well as third-party managed assets.

06DEC06: BNP Paribas Securities Services has appointed Cristina Arnaiz as head of master custody relationship management in Australia. Arnaiz was head of operations at Barclays Global Investors where she was responsible for the entire operational function. She will report to Chris Briant, head of sales and relationship management.

04DEC06: The Bank of New York and Mellon Financial Corporation have entered into a definitive agreement to merge, creating the largest securities servicing and asset management firm globally.

The new company, which will be called The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, will be the world’s leading asset servicing firm with USD16.6trn in assets under custody and USD8trn in assets under trusteeship, and will rank among the top 10 global asset managers with more than USD1.1trn in assets under management.

Tom Renyi, currently chairman and chief executive of The Bank of New York, will serve as executive chairman of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation for 18 months following the close of the transaction with overall responsibility for the integration of the two companies.

Bob Kelly, currently president, chairman and chief executive officer of Mellon, will serve as chief executive officer of the new company and will succeed Renyi as chairman of the board. Gerald Hassell, currently president of The Bank of New York, will hold the same position in the new company. The board of directors will comprise 10 members designated by The Bank of New York and eight members designated by Mellon. The new company’s headquarters will be based in New York City while maintaining a strong and growing presence in Pittsburgh.

The transaction has been unanimously approved by each company’s board of directors and is expected to be completed early in the third quarter of 2007, subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals.

The combined company today would have annual revenues of more than USD12bn, with approximately 28pct derived from asset servicing, 38pct from issuer services, clearing services and treasury services, and 29pct from asset management and private wealth management. With a combined pro forma market capitalisation of approximately USD43bn, The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation would become the 11th largest US financial institution.

04DEC06: The Bâloise Insurance Group, a European insurer with CHF65bn of assets under management, has selected BNP Paribas Securities Services to provide global custody and investment administration services in multiple locations across Europe.

The transaction, which appears to have been driven primarily by BNP Paribas’ extensive European network, covers asset servicing for 16 Bâloise entities located in the firm’s home market of Switzerland as well as in Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium. In addition to global custody, BNP Paribas will also provide Bâloise with depotbank services and other products, including securities lending, cash management and foreign exchange.

Marco Brück, head of operations, Bâloise Asset Management, said: “We were looking for a top global custodian with a real presence in the core markets of Bâloise, as well as flexibility, service quality and a relationship based on a true strategic partnership. BNP Paribas was able to meet our needs.”

30NOV06: GlobeOp Financial Services has launched GoBook, a new web-based hedge fund performance reporting tool which enables hedge fund managers to communicate independently verified fund performance data to investors.

Fund managers can authorise user access to three levels of GoBook data: fund return data, performance metrics, flash returns, manager comments and publications; fund level NAV data and manager assets under management; and fund decomposition against seven measures - P&L, cumulative P&L, net NAV and gross NAV. These measures can be stated in absolute or relative terms and can be analysed across investment type, currency, industry and region.

Fund performance can be benchmarked against a range of industry indices including the CAC-40, DAX, Dow Jones, NASDAQ, Nikkei 225 and S&P 225.

Hans Hufschmid, GlobeOp chairman and CEO, said: “The investment community is increasingly demanding more transparent and independent performance data and reporting. Both institutional and private investors are concerned that performance, risk and portfolio data are currently provided only by funds. Institutional investors are adding hedge fund investments to their portfolios. These investors require transparency and performance detail about the funds they invest in, in order to optimise their overall asset allocation.”

30NOV06: Euroclear Bank and the Dubai International Financial Exchange (DIFX) has reached an agreement by which DIFX members will be able to settle cross-border DIFX securities transactions with Euroclear Bank clients. This agreement is the first Euroclear Bank relationship with an exchange and central securities depository in the Middle East.

In early 2007, Euroclear Bank will work with Deutsche Bank, its agent in Dubai, to provide access to the DIFX’s central securities depository. All Euroclear-eligible trades on DIFX will be settled in US dollars; settlement of transactions between Euroclear Bank clients can take place in any of the 36 settlement currencies currently offered by Euroclear Bank.

30NOV06: Quintillion has selected Geneva as the platform for its hedge fund administration operation. Geneva is a product of Advent Software, Inc., a provider of software and services to the global investment management industry. Quintillion, which is based in Dublin, is a relatively new firm in this market but has aggressive growth plans and has already secured a USD2bn mandate. Quintillion has been established by a group of senior executives that previously worked at the Dublin headquarters of one of the largest hedge fund administrators in the world.

29NOV06: Francis Jackson has started to make changes in his new role as head of sales and client management for JPMorgan’s worldwide securities services business in EMEA.

Sales and relationship management offices are to be established in South Africa, Switzerland and the Middle East, following similar initiatives in the Netherlands and Germany. JPMorgan expects to hire locally to staff these offices.

In the UK, sales and client management teams are being combined for the pensions sector, to be run by Benjie Fraser, and for the asset management and insurance companies sector, run by Ann Doherty. Richard Warne, who previously ran EMEA client management, is pursuing other opportunities within the firm.

29NOV06: BISYS Alternative Investment Services has established a partnership with RiskMetrics Group, the financial risk management firm. The partnership will provide risk reporting tools that will help hedge fund managers identify, measure and manage risk for their alternative investment portfolios. The reports will include exposure statistics, portfolio sensitivities, stress tests to extreme events and value-at-risk.

28NOV06: The Bank of New York has been appointed as custodian for USD3bn of assets for the State of Idaho Treasurer's Office. The bank will provide custody services for the Treasurer's operating accounts and its local government investment pool.

Ron Crane, Idaho State Treasurer, said: “The Bank of New York has a demonstrated ability to understand and respond to the specific requirements of public funds like ours. We look forward to building a long partnership with the bank as it provides the high quality custodial and related securities services for which it is well-known.”

28NOV06: Charles Banister has joined HSBC Securities Services (HSS) as head of e-commerce. Banister will lead the long-term strategy for expanding HSS's electronic client delivery channels and managing strategic projects for electronic direct delivery that meet the needs of clients across several geographies and multiple teams. He will also manage the development of new e-channel offerings. Prior to joining HSBC, Banister was a director in business management and the chief administration officer for Citigroup's global custody services.

23NOV06: Citigroup has been appointed by the UK’s Prudential to provide securities services, fund accounting and administration services for its insurance funds and unit-linked products in Asia.

Citigroup will provide domestic and global custodial services to the insurance funds and unit-linked products of Prudential’s operations in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. In addition, Citigroup will provide investment accounting services for the assets and act as the securities lending agent in markets where it is permitted by local regulation.

23NOV06: ABN AMRO Mellon has been appointed by Cambridgeshire County Council Pension Fund to provide global custody, investment accounting and securities lending for assets worth GBP1.2bn. Thomas Murray conducted a formal review for the fund.

23NOV06: Clearstream has launched a settlement service for interest-bearing Japanese Government Bonds (JGBs) outside Japan. The service is available to clients immediately. Clearstream has been approved as both Foreign Indirect Participant (FIP) in the Bank of Japan’s government bonds book-entry system and as Qualified Foreign Intermediary (QFI) by the Japanese National Tax Office. It can now offer book entry and internal settlements of JGBs on its Luxembourg platform.

22NOV06: R&M Consultants has published the results of two industry surveys: the 2006 UK Trustee and Depositary Services Survey, and the 2006 Dublin Funds Trustee Survey.

In the UK survey, HSBC has returned to the top of the table, replacing Citigroup. The survey shows a big increase in scores for most of the banks participating in this annual survey, with the overall average score improving by a significant 0.36, from 5.67 to 6.03.

Both RBS and State Street saw significant increases in their scores, gaining 0.65 and 0.68 points respectively. This means that RBS has moved ahead of the other major player in terms of size, JPMorgan. These two banks control approximately 80pct of the market.

Commenting on the results, Richard Hogsflesh, managing director of R&M Consultants, said: “It is difficult to fully explain why there has been such a big increase in levels of client satisfaction, with 37pct of respondents indicating that they had seen an improvement in service. There are probably a couple of contributory factors. First, the introduction of this survey four years ago has brought service quality into greater focus. It has enabled banks and clients to make comparisons between the service providers – something previously difficult to do as few clients had experience of more than one provider. This in turn has grabbed the attention of the banks and allowed them to identify areas for improvement. They all take this survey seriously and are keen to do well.

“Secondly the market is perhaps more settled now than it has been for a while. OEIC conversions, where chosen, have largely been completed; stock market values have been rising (always guaranteed to make fund managers more affable) and the introduction of MiFID has not yet had its full impact on the industry. A period of stability has allowed the banks to concentrate on delivering a quality service and developing their capabilities to meet the future requirements of their clients.”

In the Dublin survey, Citigroup has regained the top place, having won the first survey in 2004.

Richard Hogsflesh said: “The 2006 Dublin Funds Trustee Survey shows a significant improvement in service levels provided by qualifying banks. An increase of 0.56 to a new industry average of 5.97 out of a possible 7 reverses last year’s decline and demonstrates that clients have seen an upgrade in the way their accounts are handled.”

The survey, which seeks to measure service levels offered by trustees in Dublin to fund promoters that are not associated with the banks by way of ownership, is in its third year. Six banks instead of seven last year qualified for inclusion, receiving the necessary minimum of six responses.

A substantial number of respondents – 41pct - said that they believed service levels from their service provider had improved over the last 12 months. This is a high percentage compared to results of similar surveys. Not one thought that service levels had deteriorated.

22NOV06: The Bank of New York has appointed Frances Barney as managing director and global risk services regional manager for the Americas. Barney will be responsible for client servicing, business development and product management. She joins from State Street, where she ran one of three regional offices delivering performance analytics services and managed the US performance outsourcing service for investment managers and consultants.

22NOV06: Fulcrum Limited, the hedge fund and alternative asset management administrator, has opened a representative office in London. The office will be led by Tim Thornton, who has been promoted to managing director, global client acquisition group and director of risk.

Fulcrum Administration (Europe) Limited will focus on high-level client support while other administration duties will continue to be carried out offshore in Fulcrum’s locations including Bermuda, Cayman, Canada, and India.

22NOV06: Mellon has been awarded a full administration service mandate for River and Mercantile Asset Management and will support the new fund management boutique from its launch on 20 November. Global custody and depositary services will be provided through ABN AMRO Mellon. Fund accounting, performance measurement, fund administration and transfer agency will be provided by Mellon’s asset servicing division.

River and Mercantile is initially offering two funds – UK Equity High Alpha and UK Smaller Companies - and anticipates launching several additional funds over the course of 2007/08. In addition to the OEICs, River and Mercantile intends to offer investment management for a range of segregated mandates, to which Mellon will provide a range of administration services.

Julian Cripps, River and Mercantile COO, said: “We selected Mellon to provide a full range of administration and custody services because they demonstrated a thorough understanding of our business needs, and have the people, technology and experience to help us make the launch of River and Mercantile a success.”

21NOV06: SEI has appointed Brandon Sharrett as managing director of its global private banking business in Europe, Middle East and South Africa. Sharrett, who will report to Joseph Ujobai, executive vice president of SEI and head of the global private banking unit, will be responsible for building SEI’s business in the region by selling the firm’s recently launched global wealth services and asset management solutions to private banks, wealth managers, advisors and distributors. The role was vacated earlier this year by Francis Jackson, who has moved to JPMorgan.

21NOV06: Richelieu Finance Gestion Privée, one of the major independent asset management companies in France, has appointed BNP Paribas Securities Services as depositary bank, transfer agent and fund administrator. BNP Paribas will also provide middle-office functions, investment reporting, and performance measurement and analytics. The migration, which was finalised in September, covers more than EUR4.3bn of assets under custody.

21NOV06: BISYS Alternative Investment Services and Beauchamp, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Linedata Services, have joined forces to provide an enhanced straight-through processing solution for hedge fund managers. BISYS and Linedata's Beauchamp FundManager application will deliver a platform for trade capture, P&L portfolio analysis, custom report design and automated reconciliations.

21NOV06: BISYS has been selected to provide mutual fund services for The Blue Fund Group's recently launched portfolios. BISYS will provide turnkey administrative services, including treasury, board, and distribution support as well as core fund accounting, fund administration, transfer agency, and shareholder services.

The Blue Fund, which launched in October, consists of a small and large cap portfolio. It is the first fund launched under BISYS's new FundEnsemble service model, which is designed to address the needs and growth objectives of advisors of new and smaller funds.

21NOV06: Fortis has appointed Joanne Murphy as commercial director for its Prime Fund Solutions unit in the Asian region. She is based in Hong Kong and reports to Jaron van Dam, chief commercial officer for Prime Fund Solutions globally, and to Tim Mann, who is managing director of Prime Fund Solutions in Asia.

Murphy will run the commercial team in Asia which includes Stewart Bent, new business, Asia ex Japan, who recently joined from HSBC, Andrew Mascall-Robson, New Business, Japan, who is also managing director of Prime Fund Solutions in Japan, and Shirley Yuen, head of account management, Asia.

Murphy joins from Deutsche Asset Management where she spent the last 18 months as head of alternative investment sales, Asia ex Japan. She was previously head of sales and marketing for HSBC Alternative Fund Services.

20NOV06: Amongst the nine individuals recently elevated to executive vice president of The Northern Trust Company is Penny Biggs, global head of corporate and institutional sales, who has become one of the custody industry’s highest-ranking women. Northern is a particularly good place to work for women, who appear to get much better and fairer treatment than at many less-enlightened firms.

Others promoted were Connie Lindsey (Corporate and Institutional Services); David Blowers, Jeffrey Cohodes, Hugh Magill and Douglas Regan (Personal Financial Services); Lyle Logan (Northern Trust Global Investments); and Marianne Doan and Brian Ovaert (Worldwide Operations and Technology).

20NOV06: The Bank of New York has appointed Ian Ratoff as a vice president in its European pension custody sales team. Based in London, he will develop the UK local authority pension fund sector, reporting to Avere Hill. Ratoff joins the bank from BNP Paribas Securities Services, where he focused on business development and the firm’s push into the UK pensions market. Previous to this he held a variety of positions at KAS BANK, Clydesdale Bank and HSBC.

20NOV06: Jean-Marc Eyssautier and Emeric Laforêt have been appointed respectively as managing director and deputy managing director of CACEIS Bank, the CACEIS Group’s custodian bank in France.

Eyssautier joined CDC IXIS in 2001 as director of operations in the asset custody department. In 2004, when IXIS Investor Services was set up by the creation of a specialised securities services branch of CDC IXIS, Eyssautier became a member of the management board, in charge of operations. In October 2005, he was named chairman of the management board of IXIS Investor Services. Laforêt joined Crédit Agricole S.A. in 2004 as deputy managing director of Crédit Agricole Investor Services Bank (CA-IS Bank). He is head of strategy and development for the CACEIS Group.

20NOV06: HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt has been appointed by Continental AG, one of Germany’s largest automotive industry suppliers, as custodian for EUR300m of pension assets. Stefan Scholz, head of finance and treasury of Hannover-based Continental, said: “HSBC were chosen due to their broad and innovative product array. They will offer us a very effective platform, thus allowing us to alleviate operational risk.”

20NOV06: ABN AMRO Mellon has appointed five relationship managers, three in the UK, the fourth in the Netherlands and the fifth in Germany.

Clive Robinson joins the Amsterdam office from State Street, where he was a client relationship manager within the WM Performance Measurement operation. Caterina Dattolo, who joins the business in Frankfurt, was formerly head of business consulting services, Continental Europe at INVESCO Asset Management. Jane Toohey has moved from ABN AMRO Mellon’s securities lending division in London. Luke Atkin was a client service manager at RBC Dexia Investor Services in London. Nick Barker joins in London from State Street, where he was also a relationship manager.

20NOV06: Brown Brothers Harriman has hired Simon Cleary as senior vice president and head of fund solutions in Europe. Cleary will be based in London and will report to Jeff Holland, a partner. Prior to joining BBH, Cleary was at SWIFT, where he was the director of securities markets responsible for defining SWIFT’s strategy for the securities business and for developing and managing solutions in support of that strategy. Cleary has also held positions in global custody relationship management, product development and operations at Citibank, The Bank of New York and Chase Manhattan.

20NOV06: The Bank of New York has appointed Karen Lay as vice president and senior relationship manager in its UK pensions client management team. She will report to Mark Bewick, Head of UK pensions relationship management, and will be based in London. Lay joins from Northern Trust, where she was a senior relationship manager responsible for global relationships for a number of UK and supranational pension fund clients.

20NOV06: Northern Trust has appointed Eamonn Fallon as technical product specialist, supporting all fund administration sales activity across Europe, Middle East, and Africa. This newly created position is part of a strategic aim to consolidate technical expertise within Northern Trust’s global fund administration team. Fallon was head of Northern Trust’s hedge funds administration team in Dublin. He will remain based in Dublin, reporting to Mark Schoen, head of EMEA product management, in London.

20NOV06: BISYS Alternative Investment Services has hired Patrick Prill as executive vice president responsible for the hedge fund administration operations in the New Jersey, Cayman Islands and San Francisco offices. He will report to Bill Neville, president of BISYS Alternative Investment Services. Prior to joining BISYS, Prill held senior positions at Soros Fund Management, Tiger Management, Morgan Stanley and Deloitte & Touche.

20NOV06: The Bank of New York has introduced a derivatives margin management service to help with the administrative, processing, reinvestment and valuation activities associated with posting and receiving collateral in connection with OTC derivatives trades. BNY has joined forces with Lombard Risk, a provider of risk management, regulatory and valuation software, to offer these expanded capabilities through Lombard Risk's Colline application.

BNY will handle a variety of operational and administrative activities for clients, such as maintaining derivatives trades and values on its systems, monitoring margin parameters, calculating margin status and reconciling trades. All of these activities will be performed in connection with trades under ISDA Master Agreements, the legal documents that are widely used to govern such trades. In addition, the service provides web-based reporting capabilities and workflow management tools designed to help clients reduce risk and enhance access control.

20NOV06: Northern Trust has won the mandate to provide custody services to the NOK2.1bn (c. USD320m) Oslo Pensjonsforsikring’s (OPF) global fixed income portfolio, managed by Rogge Global Partners. The fund is for employees working in the Municipality of Oslo, Norway, or companies in which the Municipality has a majority ownership interest. This is the first time OPF has used a global custodian.

20NOV06: Mellon Financial Corporation has appointed Ismail Dawood as senior vice president and head of corporate strategy and development. Dawood joins Mellon from Wachovia Corporation, where he spent 12 years, most recently as managing director, structured treasury activities. Dawood will report to Michael Bryson, Mellon executive vice president and chief financial officer, and will be a member of the corporation's senior management committee. He will relocate to Pittsburgh.

03NOV06: Northern Trust is making impressive progress in China, which most custodians have identified as a key market but where few have made any significant gains. The bank has signed an agreement with Bank of Communications to act as its overseas custodial agent and has won its first new client with a “multi-million dollar investment portfolio”. Under the agreement, Northern Trust provides global custody, accounting, performance measurement and investment mandate compliance monitoring services to Qualified Domestic Institutional Investors (QDII) in China.

Northern Trust and Bank of Communications will jointly service institutional investors in China as the restrictions on investment in foreign assets are relaxed. In addition to the above deal, Northern says that a number of other major bids are in the pipeline. The bank opened a rep office in Beijing in March 2005.

The deal comes after the announcement in October that the National Council for the Social Security Fund of China had chosen Northern Trust and Citigroup for global custody. In 2004 HSBC bought a 19.9pct stake in Bank of Communications.

03NOV06: Citigroup is to extend its direct custody and clearing (DCC) network to Cyprus, with remote access through the Citibank International Plc Greece branch. The service will include securities clearing and settlement for equities and corporate bonds; safekeeping; pre-matching; fails management; portfolio valuation; comprehensive SWIFT reporting; corporate actions; income collection; full proxy services; market claims; tax reclaim; cash management; foreign exchange; MIS reporting; market expertise and information services.

Citigroup will remote accessing the Cyprus Stock Exchange (CSE) for the settlement and clearing of dematerialised securities, following the implementation of the Athens Exchange and the CSE common trading and clearing platform, which was launched in October.

03NOV06: Fulcrum Limited, a global administrator for the hedge fund and alternative asset management industry, has been appointed as the third-party fund administrator by Argent Financial Group (Bermuda) Ltd. Fulcrum will administer all Argent’s funds.

Argent Financial Group is a Bermuda-based independent investment manager specialising in the market-neutral strategy of convertible arbitrage. Argent has USD1.1bn under management in nine funds covering convertible arbitrage, high yield short, long short equity, energy and multi-strategy.

03NOV06: Mellon Transition Management Services group has completed a successful transition management mandate for a GBP680m global equity portfolio for the North Yorkshire County Council Pension Fund. Neil Sellstrom of North Yorkshire said: “We have been delighted to work with Mellon on these significant changes to our global equity mandates and we are very pleased with the outcome that was achieved.”

Last September JPMorgan executed a transition management mandate for North Yorkshire, and this July the fund replaced JPMorgan as its global custodian with ABN Amro Mellon.

02NOV06: Moves of very senior managers between rivals are exceptionally rare, so there will be a frisson of excitement at the news that Jack Klinck, a vice chairman of Mellon Financial Corporation, is to join State Street.

Klinck is to take up a newly created role as executive vice president and head of global investment product services. Klinck, who will report to Jay Hooley, executive vice president and head of investment servicing and investment research and trading, will be responsible for the strategic direction, global sales and product structuring of the company’s hedge and offshore fund servicing capabilities worldwide.

Klinck was chief operating officer of Mellon’s asset servicing businesses. He returned to the US last summer to run the investment manager solutions group after four years in London as head of Mellon Europe. However, a reorganisation this May by new CEO Bob Kelly saw Klinck’s responsibilities change as Jim Palermo assumed overall control of all asset servicing. Klinck has not been directly replaced at Mellon.

01NOV06: The Teachers’ Retirement System of Oklahoma has selected JPMorgan to provide custody and related services for its USD8bn portfolio. JPMorgan will provide custody, fund accounting, securities lending, performance measurement and compliance reporting services.

“We chose JPMorgan because we felt it was the best firm to help us reach our goal of maximising gains, minimising losses and protecting the retirement benefits of Oklahoma’s educators,” said Tommy Beavers, executive secretary, Teachers Retirement System of Oklahoma.

01NOV06: State Street has expanded its relationship with the ACE group of insurance and reinsurance companies to include securities lending services in the UK for more than USD3bn assets. The mandate expands a five–year relationship in which State Street has provided ACE with custody services in the UK as well as custody and securities lending services for its operations in the United States and Bermuda. State Street now provides ACE with a range of investment services for more than USD32bn in assets.

01NOV06: BNP Paribas has appointed Nick Claxton as sales manager for financial intermediaries in the UK. The role will focus on winning new mandates for transaction and securities services from broker-dealers and investment banks in the UK. He will report to Jason Nabi, head of financial intermediaries UK. Prior to his new appointment, Claxton led sales and business development at Thomson Financial in their STP and securities processing business.

01NOV06: HSBC Securities Services in Germany has hired Attila Demirci as head of Depotbank services. Before joining HSBC, Demirci worked for 10 years at State Street in the global securities services business as head of customer services.

01NOV06: Northern Trust has hired Judson Baker as product manager for derivative processing related services including valuations, collateral management and client reporting. Baker is responsible for coordinating and developing Northern Trust’s investment operations outsourcing technology, fund administration and custody services as they relate to derivatives. He will report to Mark Schoen, head of asset servicing product development, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Baker joins from Citadel, a multi-strategy hedge fund, where he developed and managed a product control group responsible for independent price verification and reporting and analysis of profit/loss for all products traded at the firm.

27OCT06: Just a year after he was appointed as State Street’s head of the investor services business in the UK, Middle East and Southern Africa, Peter Baker is being reassigned to another role as head of investor services for State Street in Asia, excluding Japan. In this role Baker, who will be based in Singapore, will look after China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, and will report to KK Tse, executive vice president and head of State Street’s investment servicing operations for all of Asia Pacific.

Baker joined State Street in Sydney in 1988. Earlier this year a new management structure was implemented in the UK. As part of this alignment, Peter O’ Neill was named to a new role running both the investment servicing and investment research and trading units in the region. No replacement for Baker has been named, although an internal and external search is thought to be under way.

27OCT06: With a press release that runs to more than 1,000 words, Omgeo clearly believes that the appointment of Marianne Brown as its new president and chief executive officer of Omgeo is a major event.

Brown will replace Adam Bryan, who was president and CEO during Omgeo’s first five years of operations. Bryan will be joining DTCC’s senior management team in January 2007, with Brown taking the seat in November.

Brown was CEO of the Securities Industry Automation Corporation (SIAC), a wholly owned subsidiary of the New York Stock Exchange and the American Stock Exchange. SIAC is responsible for the design, development, implementation and support of the exchanges' computer systems and communications networks, as well as other technology ventures.

At DTCC, Adam Bryan will become managing director for customer satisfaction and service, where he will lead the company’s efforts to fully integrate all customer service functions. He will report directly to Bill Aimetti, DTCC’s chief operating officer.

27OCT06: The Bank of New York has appointed John Savage as managing director and head of US plan sponsor sales for its investor services division. Savage will be responsible for managing the bank’s sales efforts to the public fund, corporate, endowment and foundation and Taft-Hartley market segments. He joins from Northern Trust, where for the past 16 years he was responsible for marketing trust and custody services to plan sponsors in the corporate marketplace and was in client service for the public fund market place.

25OCT06: U.S. Bancorp Fund Services (USBFS), a subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp, the sixth largest financial holding company in the United States, has selected Eagle STAR for mutual fund accounting and reporting. Eagle STAR is a web-based investment accounting system that supports multiple lines of business including mutual funds, insurance, institutional asset management, hedge funds and brokerage/wealth management on a single platform.

USBFS has extended its relationship with Eagle Investment Systems, a Mellon Financial company, after successfully implementing Eagle PACE, a data hub and portfolio management solution, and Eagle Portal, an interactive information delivery platform for the web.

“We were impressed with the quality and speed associated with our Eagle PACE implementation and the exceptional ongoing client service we receive. In addition, Eagle remains the leader in providing advanced solutions, so when their mutual fund accounting capabilities became available, they were the logical choice for expansion,” said Joe Redwine, president of USBFS. “Eagle is the only firm offering a fully integrated accounting and data warehouse system on new technology, enabling us to further enhance our operational efficiencies.”

USBFS currently provides services to 270 fund families, with over 1,500 portfolios and 2,000 fund classes and administers 3.3m shareholder accounts with USD608bn in client assets. Last year U.S. Bancorp bought the trust and custody business of Wachovia.

25OCT06: Following the recent appointment of Rob Baillie as president and chief executive officer of Northern Trust, Canada, the bank is continuing to add staff. Dianna Price joins as vice president, institutional sales in the corporate and institutional services division, and Jana Forster joins as vice president, compliance. Both will report to Baillie.

Price will focus on growing Northern Trust’s asset servicing business with institutional investors in Canada. She was most recently with Fidelity Investments Canada, where she was district vice president promoting investment products in Toronto. Forster was senior manager of regulatory compliance for Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board for five years.

24OCT06: Evergreen Investments, the asset management arm of Wachovia, has appointed State Street to provide investment manager operations outsourcing services for more than 2,500 portfolios representing approximately USD150bn in assets.

State Street will provide Evergreen with a broad range of investment operations services including trade matching and confirmation, data management, reconciliation, performance measurement and portfolio recordkeeping. Approximately 60 Evergreen employees are transferring to State Street. State Street has provided Evergreen Investments with custody and accounting services since 1960.

24OCT06: RBC Dexia Investor Services has appointed Scott MacDonald as the new head and managing director of Australia, with effect from January 2007. MacDonald will succeed Alex Muto, who has held the post for almost three years. Muto will remain in Australia until the spring before taking on his next role within the organisation. MacDonald is currently head of technical sales in Canada.

24OCT06: The Bank of New York has appointed Martin McKendry as a senior relationship manager and vice president in its Nordic team. He reports to Gunnel Orndahl, vice president and head of the Nordic region, and is based in London. He will be responsible for all BNY’s investor services clients across the Nordic and Baltic regions. McKendry joins BNY from BNP Paribas Securities Services where he was a global relationship manager.

24OCT06: JPMorgan has completed an asset restructuring for the GBP1bn Lincolnshire County Council Pension Fund. Ralph Gould, the fund’s investment manager, said: “The transition was seamless and JPMorgan delivered a very cost effective result.”

24OCT06: BNP Paribas Securities Services has launched a global custody service in Switzerland. Based in the bank’s Zurich branch, Switzerland becomes the ninth location in Europe where BNP Paribas Securities Services provides global custody services. The other locations are France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Jersey, Luxembourg, Spain and the UK.

23OCT06: The Bank of New York has launched BNY ExecutionPlus, a new product that integrates the bank’s custody, execution, clearing and settlement services for financial institutions based outside the United States trading in US equity markets.

BNY ExecutionPlus will combine BNY’s global custody service with the execution capabilities of Pershing LLC, covering the complete lifecycle of a US equity trade, from order capture via virtually any third party order management system, to execution in the market, affirmation/confirmation, foreign exchange, clearing, settlement and reporting.

18OCT06: Following Northern Trust’s appointment, announced last week, Citigroup has confirmed that it has also been selected by China’s National Council for Social Security Fund to provide custody services for its overseas investments.

18OCT06: Northern Trust has named Timothy Theriault as president, corporate and institutional services. Theriault moves from his job as president, worldwide operations and technology. He will report to Rick Waddell, the corporation’s president.

Jana Schreuder, executive vice president and head of corporate risk management, has been named president, worldwide operations and technology, reporting to Waddell.

Kelly Welsh, executive vice president and general counsel, will assume Schreuder’s risk management duties in addition to his legal department responsibilities.

Steve Potter, executive vice president and head of Northern Trust’s international and global fund services segment since 2002, will assume management responsibility for all of Northern Trust’s activities in the UK and Europe, in addition to his other international responsibilities, and has been named to the corporation’s management committee. Potter will report to Theriault.

18OCT06: State Street has been appointed as securities lending provider for an additional USD190bn in assets by the US-based financial services organisation TIAA-CREF.

With this additional mandate, State Street now provides services for more than USD210bn in assets for TIAA-CREF. State Street has provided custody and securities lending services for a portion of TIAA-CREF's assets since 2004.

“Consolidating our providers and expanding our relationship with State Street will allow TIAA-CREF to add value from our securities lending activities for our participants,” said Ed Grzybowski, TIAA-CREF's chief investment officer. “TIAA-CREF is committed to managing our investment functions as efficiently as possible and in the two years we have worked with them, State Street has demonstrated the experience and capabilities to help us achieve that goal.”

17OCT06: Slowly but surely, the senior management team at RBC Dexia Investor Services is being recast to make it more market-friendly, a process that requires enormous care so as not to alarm the clients or upset the shareholders.

The latest move is the appointment of Jean-Michel Loehr as chief executive officer of RBC Dexia Investor Services Bank S.A., and a member of the executive committee of RBC Dexia Investor Services Limited. Loehr was previously deputy CEO and chief operating officer for RBC Dexia Investor Services Bank S.A.

Loehr replaces Michel Malpas, who has left the bank. Malpas was also deputy CEO and chief marketing officer of RBC Dexia Investor Services.

17OCT06: The BISYS Group has reached an agreement in principle with the lead plaintiffs to settle the securities class action lawsuit entitled "In re BISYS Securities Litigation" and a related securities action pending against it and certain of its former officers and directors in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The proposed settlement involves claims relating to the company's financial disclosures, including allegations concerning its financial restatements filed in 2005 and 2006, and is conditioned upon successful negotiation of definitive documentation and approval by the Court.

Under the proposed settlement, BISYS will pay an aggregate of USD66.5m in cash into an escrow account within 10 days after preliminary Court approval. The settlement, which includes no admission of wrongdoing by BISYS or any of the individual defendants, will be funded through a combination of cash on hand, the firm’s existing credit facility and available insurance proceeds under its USD25m directors and officers liability policy.

17OCT06: Sam Fiore has been appointed director of business development for Prime Fund Solutions in Geneva, a unit of Fortis Merchant Banking servicing the alternative investment community.

Fiore was formerly the head of private banking at Dryden Bank SA, which was acquired by Fortis earlier this year. He will report to Eric Jacobson, managing director of the Prime Fund Solutions Geneva office.

17OCT06: BISYS Fund Services has made two senior appointments. Peter Quinn has been named senior vice president and chief information officer, and Joseph Rezabek has been hired as senior vice president responsible for fund administration and fund accounting. Both will be based in the firm's Columbus, Ohio facility and will report to Dana Donahue, executive vice president of operations.

Quinn was CIO of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Rezabek joins from State Street where he was chief operating officer of the Milan branch.

13OCT06: Northern Trust has been selected to provide global custody, investment compliance monitoring, and performance measurement services to China’s multi-billion dollar National Social Security Fund (NSSF).

Northern Trust will provide NSSF with a package of trade-dated, fully accrued, multi-currency international portfolio accounting reports in Chinese. Northern Trust specifically developed this Chinese language capability to support NSSF and other clients in China.

Mr Xiang Huaicheng, Chairman of NSSF, said that the fund’s expert evaluation committee had made its final decision from a short-list of six global custodians, following an initial selection by a consultancy.

NSSF was established in 2000 to supplement anticipated shortfalls in national and provincial pension programmes in China, and is the first institutional retirement fund in China to invest overseas. NSSF was one of the first institutional funds in China to have received Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII) status from the State Council in 2004, allowing it to invest in overseas equities markets with designated foreign currencies. Northern Trust has been working with the fund since 2002, on a consulting basis, providing advice on setting up an internal infrastructure to support its overseas investment programmes.

13OCT06: Société Générale Securities Services has completed the acquisition from Boursorama of the retail processing infrastructure of Squaregain Ltd (previously ComDirect UK) which now processes approximately 20pct of the UK retail market trades.

The newly acquired company will become part of the SGSS outsourcing division, which already offers back-office securities outsourcing services on equities and related products to the institutional market. Philippe Robeyns, Head of SGSS international securities outsourcing services, is also appointed chief executive officer of the new company, which has about 60 employees.

12OCT06: Bernard Tancré has been appointed by Fortis as general manager, Prime Fund Solutions Luxembourg, a unit of Fortis Merchant Banking that services the alternative investment industry.

Tancré succeeds Jacques Bofferding, who recently relocated to New York to take over responsibility for the activities of Prime Fund Solutions in the US and Caribbean. Tancré previously ran the client service department of Brown Brothers Harriman in Luxembourg.

11OCT06: HSBC Securities Services (Luxembourg) has acquired the business of Liberty Ermitage (Luxembourg) S.A. (LELSA), the Luxembourg-based fund administration business of Liberty Group. Under the agreement Liberty Group Jersey Holdings Limited will be paid over a three year period, subject to agreed thresholds and up to a maximum of EUR8m.

LELSA currently employs 25 staff, administers over 20 funds and, at 31 July 2006, had assets under administration of more than USD4.5bn.

HSBC is one of the largest administrators and custodians of alternative funds in Luxembourg, with more than USD35bn in assets under administration as at 31 July 2006.

11OCT06: Citigroup is to provide direct custody and clearing (DCC) services to clients in Sweden. This is Citi's fourth new DCC opening since November 2005, with previous openings in Slovakia, Vietnam and Israel, expanding the bank’s proprietary DCC network to 48 markets.

09OCT06: Brown Brothers Harriman has made a major breakthrough in China. It has been appointed by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) as the global sub-custodian for the first collective investment vehicle authorised under China's qualified domestic institutional investor (QDII) scheme. Under this arrangement, ICBC is the investment vehicle’s master custodian, with Bank of China International as the vehicle’s investment manager. In addition to global custody, BBH will also provide accounting and administration services.

06OCT06: BNP Paribas Securities Services has appointed Patrick Colle to replace Jon Lloyd as head of product for clearing, settlement and custody. Lloyd quit in May to join JPMorgan as chief administrative officer for worldwide securities services in EMEA.

Colle will be responsible for the product development of all securities clearing and custody-related activities, which include the bank’s derivatives clearing business as well as middle- and back-office outsourcing for broker-dealers. He will report to Michel Laurent, head of product and marketing. Colle was senior vice president and global business manager of ADRs for JPMorgan Chase in London.

06OCT06: HSBC Securities Services has appointed two senior trustee and depositary positions at its London office.

Alan Davies has been appointed senior manager, trustee and depositary services - derivatives and risk. Davies was previously the head of risk management UK with HSBC Investments.

Jackie Freeman is made senior trustee and depositary manager - account and product development. Freeman has worked in the banking sector for over 20 years, most recently as a senior relationship manager in the funds sector with HSBC Securities Services in EMEA.

04OCT06: Paternoster, the specialist UK pension buy-out insurance company, has appointed State Street to provide custody and securities lending services. The business will be serviced from State Street’s operations in Edinburgh and London.

03OCT06: HSBC Securities Services has appointed Susan McCartney as head of fund manager services, and Chris Johnson as head of data management, for its EMEA strategic outsourcing division. Both will report to Alan Plom, head of investment operations at HSS EMEA.

McCartney joins from Lehman Brothers Asset Management, where she was leading a project to create Lehman’s middle office environment. Prior to Lehman Brothers, McCartney was responsible for the middle office team at F&C Asset Management, originating from a similar role at ISIS Asset Management before the two firms merged.

Johnson previously worked for Threadneedle Investments as head of investment information services and prior to that at UBS Warburg, Chase Manhattan Bank and Bankers Trust Company.

03OCT06: Northern Trust has moved into new office space in Bangalore, India. The new office, which is fully operated and staffed by 200 Northern Trust employees, supports the company’s international businesses. David Wicks, senior vice president, has relocated from London to head the Bangalore office.

03OCT06: State Street has appointed Cassie Martin as vice president of sales and relationship management for State Street’s transition management team in Europe. Martin will report to Edward Pennings, head of EMEA sales and relationship management for State Street’s transition management business.

02OCT06: BNP Paribas Securities Services has hired Christophe Beelaerts as a senior product manager in the global fund services product team. He is based in Luxembourg and reports to Alan Dundon, global product head of fund administration and middle-office outsourcing. Beelaerts joins the firm from RBC Dexia Investor Services in Luxembourg, where he was in charge of fund services product management for Europe and Asia.

28SEP06: The Employees Retirement System of Texas has gone live on Eagle STAR, Eagle Investment Systems’ web-based, real-time, multi-currency investment accounting solution. As part of a project to improve the efficiency of Texas ERS' investment management process, the Eagle solution was selected to support the unitisation of the plans assets.

“We had an aggressive delivery date of less than four and a half months to successfully replace our legacy accounting system. Eagle's breadth of implementation experience, particularly in the public sector, combined with their leading technology and ability to deliver its solution on an ASP model, made Eagle the provider of choice,” said Kurt Lehmann, chief technology officer of Texas ERS. “Eagle is helping us improve our operational efficiency significantly by delivering an automated conduit to help us control and reconcile our portfolio accounts in a straight-through processing environment.”

28SEP06: Ansbacher Fund Services, the specialist provider of fund administration services to the private equity industry, has completed its management buy-out from Ansbacher and is now known as Augentius Fund Administration. The transaction also included Augentius Fund Administration (Guernsey) Limited and Augentius Trust Company (Guernsey) Limited. In its three years in operation, the asset base has grown to EUR12bn.

28SEP06: Euroclear Bank and Clearstream Banking Luxembourg have announced a programme of improvements to the automated daytime Bridge between the two international central securities depositories.

Delivery of the first enhancement, which is scheduled for January 2007, will improve overall settlement efficiency for the ICSDs’ respective clients and increase the capacity for same-day transaction settlement and securities financing across the Bridge.

28SEP06: Citigroup and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) have agreed that Citigroup Israel will provide direct custody and clearing (DCC) services to clients through the TASE Clearing House, making Citigroup the first foreign bank in Israel to offer DCC services to a large international client base. Citibank N.A. was recently approved as a member of TASE and the TASE Clearing House, enabling the bank to offer securities clearing and settlement services in Israel.

28SEP06: Euroclear Bank will reduce safekeeping and transaction-settlement fees by EUR9m, or an average of 17pct, for debt securities from six European markets. Effective 1 October 2006, the latest round of fee reductions will apply to safekeeping fees for domestic debt securities from Austria, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain, and cross-border settlement fees for Belgian and French securities transactions. About EUR30m in tariff reductions have already been passed on to clients in 2006, in addition to the EUR45m rebated in January for business activity in 2005.

28SEP06: Fulcrum Limited, a global administrator for the hedge fund and alternative asset management industry, has opened a Cayman Island branch, headed by Steven Slessor.

Fulcrum Fund Services (Cayman) Limited received a Mutual Fund Administrator License in July 2006. The Cayman office was officially opened in August and will be headed by Slessor as the manager, hedge fund services. Slessor has spent the past two years as hedge fund account manager for Fulcrum Fund Administration Limited in Kitchener, Ontario, where he was responsible for operations and new business development.

28SEP06: Northern Trust has hired Tony Michael as company secretary for its fund administration operation in Jersey. Michael will assist Graeme McArthur, managing director in Jersey, with running Northern Trust’s fund administration operations on the island. He will also have client relationship management responsibilities.

Michael has worked in the Jersey finance sector for 17 years. He joins Northern Trust from Dominion Corporate Services Limited, where he was director of client service and operations.

28SEP06: State Street has been selected by IKANO Fund Management S.A. to provide third-party securities lending services for EUR3.8bn in assets. IKANO Fund Management, part of the IKANO Group, specialises in multi-manager fund products. As of August 31, IKANO had more than EUR3.8bn under management, through 24 asset managers, in 13 funds.

“We chose State Street for their overall product expertise and ability to generate revenue on our behalf,” said Peter Branner, managing director at IKANO.

25SEP06: JPMorgan Worldwide Securities Services has hired Francis Jackson to head up its sales and client relations functions in Europe, Middle East and Africa. He will be based in London and will report to Conrad Kozak, head of investor services, and Tom Christofferson, global head of sales.

This is a new role that was created for Jackson, who left SEI earlier in the summer after four years working on its wealth management services. Jackson previously worked in the custody business with Chase, JPMorgan and Bankers Trust.

Dick Feehan, who was head of EMEA sales, has left the company. It is also anticipated that there will be further changes in the client relations/client service management team, although no details have been announced.

22SEP06: State Street has been appointed by the CIMB Group, a Malaysia-based banking group, to provide investment services for the FTSE/ASEAN 40 ETF, the first ASEAN exchange-traded fund listed on the Singapore Exchange.

The FTSE/ASEAN 40 ETF is the world's first ASEAN ETF and tracks the FTSE/ASEAN 40 Index, which comprises of 40 stocks in the 5 ASEAN countries: Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines.

21SEP06: Northern Trust has been selected by the Abu Dhabi Pensions & Benefits Retirement Fund as sole global custodian and provider of investment risk and analytical services, including performance measurement and attribution analysis.

The fund was created in 2000 by the Abu Dhabi government for national government, semi-government and private sector employees.

Andrew Palmer, financial controller of the fund said: “We began a thorough review of our custody arrangements in late 2003 and were impressed by the way Northern Trust worked with us flexibly to respond to our requirements during our rigorous due diligence process. Key factors in our decision to appoint Northern Trust were its long history and clear expertise in supporting pension funds on a global basis, together with its client service culture, experience in the Middle East and its leading edge technological capabilities.”

20SEP06: Omgeo has appointed John Burchenal as managing director of global straight-through processing partners, in addition to his existing leadership of asset class expansion. Burchenal, who joined Omgeo in 2005, will continue to report to Adam Bryan, president and chief executive officer.

Additionally, Paul Antosh has joined the company as executive director, global product management. Antosh will be responsible for developing product management best practices, enhancing business and commercial focus within the function and increasing collaboration between product groups and across other functions at Omgeo. He will also oversee Omgeo’s value-add solutions to clients. Antosh will report to Steve Matthews, managing director, product and business development. He was director of product management at Progress Software Corporation.

19SEP06: Goldman Sachs JBWere Asset Management has selected RBC Dexia Investor Services to provide fund administration and transfer agency (unit registry) services for its AUD8bn portfolio of funds in Australia.

Ian Ward-Ambler, managing director of GSJBW, said: “Goldman Sachs JBWere Asset Management considered a number of service options with the objective of broadening functionality, improving time to market, further improving our service offering for clients and planning for future growth. We selected RBC Dexia Investor Services based on its strategic and cultural alignment, its commitment to service excellence and its proven ability to work together with us to deliver comprehensive solutions for our clients.”

Fund administration will be provided through RBC Dexia’s Sydney office, while transfer agency services will be provided in a new centre to be established in Melbourne. This new team will leverage the retail unit registry expertise of GSJBW’s existing team of professionals through a lift-out of staff. RBC Global Services was appointed as global custodian for JB Were Investment Management in 2003.

19SEP06: Mellon has been appointed to service Standard Chartered Bank’s Dublin-domiciled money market fund, Standard Chartered Bank Global Liquidity Fund. The umbrella fund is a money market fund made up of a US Dollar sub-fund, currently valued at USD1.13bn. The mandate includes fund administration and trustee services. Global custody is provided through Mellon’s global custody joint venture, ABN AMRO Mellon.

Paul Jebson, global head of funds management, Standard Chartered Bank, said: “Mellon’s experience in servicing this type of fund was a key factor in our decision to appoint them. We were also impressed with the strength and depth of their asset servicing capabilities, plus their ability to listen and tailor a bespoke operational service offering according to our specific needs.”

19SEP06: Exane, a French brokerage house, has selected BNP Paribas Securities Services to provide back office services. The bank will provide a comprehensive back office solution to Exane that covers trade administration, clearing and settlement, both in France and international markets. The bank owns 50pct of Exane and markets European cash equity brokerage services under the Exane BNP Paribas brand.

Patrick Cresus, director, middle and back office operations at Exane, said: “This agreement is about specialisation. It allows Exane’s operations management to concentrate its energy as well as all its human and technical resources on middle office activities so as to better meet the needs of our clients. Being part of a project which is both exciting and innovative, it also represents a new operational and technological challenge for our teams.”

18SEP06: ABN AMRO Mellon has been appointed by Stichting Pensioenfonds Hoogovens, the pension fund for the employees and pensioners of Corus Netherlands, to provide global custody and data warehouse solutions for assets worth EUR5bn. The assets have already been converted. Citigroup is reported to be the outgoing provider.

ABN AMRO Mellon is providing a bundled solution, including global custody, investment accounting, regulatory reporting, securities lending, cash management, FX and trade confirmation. Investment accounting for non-custody assets – encompassing private placements, mortgages and real estate – is also part of the package. Eagle Investment Systems will provide a complete data warehouse solution.

Harry Lensen, Hoogovens’ chief financial officer, said: “After a meticulous six-month review of three global custodians on our short list, which included site visits, service level agreement reviews and the use of external consultants – amongst others NIBC, who assisted with drafting the SLA – we selected ABN AMRO Mellon for their ability to manage all of our service requirements. The data warehouse solution played an important role in our final decision.”

18SEP06: State Street has appointed Virginia Meany to a newly created role as senior vice president within its North American investor services team. Meany, who will report to Jim Phalen, executive vice president and head of State Street’s North American investment servicing business, will join State Street later this month. She will join from JPMorgan Chase where she was responsible for mutual fund investment operations.

18SEP06: RBC Dexia Investor Services has appointed Conlon Chen as deputy managing director of its Hong Kong operation. He will be responsible for all aspects of day-to-day fund operations, IT and office administration, reporting to Dominique Draux, chief executive officer and regional head, Australasia. Prior to joining RBC Dexia Investor Services, Chen held various operational roles within State Street Bank Luxembourg S.A. His most recent position was head of fund services, where he was responsible for the centralised support and service functions within fund administration.

18SEP06: JPMorgan Worldwide Securities Services has hired Mark Kelley as head of JPMorgan Fund Services, which provides custody, accounting, investment operations and administrative services for mutual fund companies in the US. He reports to Conrad Kozak, global head of investor services, and will be based in New York. Kelley has joined from Citigroup, where he was managing director and regional business head of securities and fund services in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

14SEP06: HSBC Securities Services in Germany has appointed Fatih Dueger as head of custody client services. He previously worked at Deutsche Bank as head of funds settlement and as senior project manager for State Street.

14SEP06: Mellon has been named custodian and provider of monthly valuation services to California Insurance Guarantee Association. CIGA, a California-based organisation with USD1.2bn in assets under management, pays the claims of insolvent insurance carriers that are licensed to do business in California.

14SEP06: James Harwood-Bridgen has been appointed by HSBC Securities Services Europe as senior relationship manager for its strategic outsourcing services business. He will report to Linda McLennan, head of relationship management for the unit’s outsourcing clients. Prior to joining HSBC, he worked for The Bank of New York, JP Morgan Chase and BNP Paribas.

13SEP06: Mellon has been appointed to provide custody and administer the back office for Focused Investors LLC, a start-up investment manager based in Beverly Hills, CA. Mellon will provide custody, participant accounting and monthly fund valuations for the Focused Investors Fund LP commingled fund structure, and reconciliation, performance measurement, client statement and client billing services to support Focused Investors’ separate accounts.

13SEP06: Northern Trust has appointed Catherine Williams as new business development specialist in the US institutional asset servicing sales team, with a primary focus on public funds in the Midwest states. Prior to her new role, Williams was a senior relationship manager covering large public funds.

13SEP06: Citigroup has launched alternative investment administration services in Asia Pacific. Services include fund and portfolio accounting, general ledger accounting, shareholder recordkeeping, corporate secretarial services and customised statements and reports.

12SEP06: KAS BANK is to provide an investment operations outsourcing service to Grafische Bedrijfsfondsen (GBF), the pensions administration agency for, among others, the graphics/media sector in the Netherlands. GBF wants to focus more on its core activities, such as pension management, internal asset management and the selection and monitoring of external asset managers. GBF will use KAS BANK’s systems infrastructure and products, including performance measurement, risk management, trade order and cash management, and analysis and reporting activities. Some GBF employees will be transferred to KAS BANK.

Paul van Leeuwen, managing director of GBF, said: “The administration of our investment activities increasingly requires state-of-the-art securities systems. GBF has decided to focus on its asset management activities and advice to clients; the investment back-office will be outsourced. KAS BANK, being a specialist securities bank, can execute these activities in a more effective and cost-efficient way. GBF, in turn, will pass on the price/quality advantage for asset management to its new and existing clients.”

11SEP06: TA Associates has completed its buyout of SmartStream Technologies, a provider of transaction management systems, from the firm’s previous majority shareholder, 3i. TA Associates is one of the world’s leading buyout and private equity firms and holds stakes in asset servicing companies including GlobeOp and e-SecLending.

SmartStream’s product portfolio includes solutions for reconciliations, business process automation, corporate actions, enterprise exception management, cash management, financial messaging, trade process management and compliance solutions.

08SEP06: Manulife Financial Corporation’s individual wealth management and group savings and retirement solutions businesses have selected RBC Dexia Investor Services to provide fund administration services for their CAD26bn portfolio of funds in Canada.

“After a comprehensive review of our strategic alternatives, we are confident that RBC Dexia Investor Services is the best choice for providing fund administration services for our investment funds," said Roy Firth, executive vice president, Canadian individual wealth management, Manulife Financial. “We were particularly impressed with the company's newly expanded scope and capabilities following the recent joint venture between RBC Global Services and Dexia Fund Services. In addition to helping us enhance our reporting capabilities, we are looking to RBC Dexia Investor Services to assist us with reducing operating costs as well as supporting our future growth in the Canadian marketplace.”

Manulife Financial is a Canadian-based financial services group. Operating as Manulife Financial in Canada and Asia, and primarily through John Hancock in the United States, the company offers a range of financial protection products and wealth management services. Funds under management by Manulife Financial and its subsidiaries were CAD370bn (USD332bn) as at June 30, 2006.

In 2004 Manulife appointed CIBC Mellon as sole custodian for its general, segregated and mutual funds, covering assets of CAD60bn.

08SEP06: The Bank of New York continues to reshape its business profile, and has announced two interesting transactions.

BNY has reached an agreement to sell its transfer agency software business, Rufus, to Bravura Solutions Limited, a supplier of wealth management applications and professional services, for a maximum of GBP32m. Under the agreement, Bravura will acquire all of the software and intellectual property comprising Rufus, and all existing employees will transfer to Bravura.

BNY acquired Rufus in 1999 as part of its purchase of RBS Trust Bank, and has invested heavily to make it a pan-European platform. Rufus supports over 75 clients, 1,500 funds and six million investor accounts.

Based in Australia and established in the Asia Pacific region with over 125 clients globally, Bravura is a specialist provider of wealth management applications.

Separately, BNY has reached agreement with Allied Irish Banks plc to purchase AIB’s 50pct stake in AIB/BNY Securities Services (Ireland) Ltd. The transaction, which will require regulatory approval, is expected to be completed by the end of the third quarter of 2006. The profit and capital impacts will not be material for AIB.

AIB/BNY Securities Services was established in 1995 as a joint venture between AIB and BNY to provide a range of services for a number of fund structures domiciled in Ireland. The JV, which currently has USD210bn assets under administration, employs 600 staff between its Dublin and Cork offices. Following the purchase of AIB’s stake, all current AIB/BNY employees will join BNY and BNY will be the sole owner of the operation.

08SEP06: BNP Paribas Securities Services and BNP Paribas Equities and Derivatives have formed a joint venture to combine current correspondent clearing services provided out of King of Prussia in Pennsylvania together with BNP Paribas Securities Services' global transaction and custodial services.

06SEP06: State Street has been appointed by Amlin plc and Amlin Bermuda Limited to provide investment services for GBP2.2bn in assets. Amlin plc is a specialist insurance and reinsurance underwriting group listed on the London Stock Exchange.

State Street will provide custody, investment accounting, performance measurement, compliance monitoring and futures clearing services. Princeton Financial Systems will provide investment accounting, and WM Performance Services will provide performance measurement. Amlin was advised by Thomas Murray.

Lawrence Komo comes in as head of securities finance for Asia Pacific. He will report to Margaret Dawson, Asia Pacific head of securities and fund services and Tim Douglas, global head of securities finance, and will be based in Singapore. He joins from UOB Group in Singapore, where he was executive director of asset management sales.

Lau Chee-Kin has been appointed Singapore securities country manager. He was previously securities country manager in Malaysia. He is replaced by Benedict Ler, who joins from RHB Securities, where he was senior general manager of operations.

Rudy Ingkiriwang has taken the newly created role of securities and fund services network manager for Asia Pacific. He joins from Standard Chartered, where he was most recently head of securities services operations for South East Asia. He will be based in Singapore.

04SEP06: AEGON The Netherlands and Citigroup have struck an outsourcing deal which will result in the transfer of EUR40bn of assets. AEGON will use Citi’s innovative new platform that will facilitate the use of a range of asset strategies, including portable alpha, through pooling. It is expected that the platform will be fully operational by the third quarter of 2007.

Citi will provide funds administration, performance management, transition management, a range of customised equity-related solutions and post-trade compliance functions in addition to custody, securities lending and fund accounting. Migration of current funds should take place in the second quarter of 2007. No transfer of staff or systems will be involved in the transaction.

Erik van Houwelingen, board member of AEGON The Netherlands, said: “In Citigroup we have found a partner that understands our desire to come up with a highly innovative product. The platform’s possibilities are almost infinite and supports AEGON’s strategy to provide our clients with innovative asset management solutions efficiently and effectively, allowing our clients to benefit from the product and scale benefits that can be achieved.”

The deal expands Citi’s outsourcing relationship with AEGON: last year AEGON Asset Management UK transferred its fund accounting and administration functions to Citi.

01SEP06: Northern Trust has brought its two Dublin-based fund administration offices together under one roof, moving to Georges Court in central Dublin. Northern Trust currently employs over 400 people in Ireland, more than double the number at the start of 2005 as a result of the acquisition of Baring’s Financial Services Group. It administers over 550 funds from Dublin, with approximately EUR70bn (USD90bn) in assets under administration.

01SEP06: Euroclear has launched the second phase of its implementation plan for single settlement engine (SSE), going live at CRESTCo, the central securities depository for UK and Irish equities. Euroclear France went live on the SSE on 29 May, whilst Euroclear Bank’s SSE launch is expected before the end of the year.

01SEP06: CSTIM, the investment management consultancy, is expanding its operations in the Asia Pacific region with the establishment of a consulting practice, CSTIM Pte Limited, based in Singapore. The expansion follows the establishment of its Australian practice in 2005. CSTIM has appointed Tony Jeffs as director of CSTIM Pte Limited. Founding directors of CSTIM’s Australian business, Philip Hope and Ian Perkins, will also join the board of CSTIM Pte Limited.

30AUG06: Mellon is establishing a new management team for its Eagle Investment Systems subsidiary. David Palten, the current chief executive officer, is to become chairman following the arrival of Lou Maiuri, who will replace Palten in October. John Lehner is promoted to president of Eagle.

Maiuri, 41, originally joined Eagle in 1996 as a partner. During his prior tenure at Eagle, he was responsible for the development of the Eagle PACE product, including overseeing the build-out of its performance measurement and attribution capabilities. He had been promoted to chief operating officer in 2002 before leaving to join Fidelity to run its equity trading system technology.

Palten, 51, an Eagle co-founder, was named chief executive officer in 2003. In his new role, he will continue to report to Jack Klinck and will develop corporate strategies that focus on expanding Eagle's global business.

In addition to his current responsibilities, which include global sales and marketing, Lehner, 40, will now run international operations, product management and its services teams, including Eagle Access, Eagle's ASP business, client relations, training and global professional services. He will report to Maiuri.

29AUG06: JPMorgan Worldwide Securities Services has expanded its US sales force for investment managers. James Donatell will focus on new business development for West Coast asset managers and Diane Hutson Scott will concentrate on firms in the Northeast.

Donatell has more than 20 years of financial sales experience in senior sales positions at Parnassus Investments, Gartmore Global Investments and Fidelity Investments. He will be based in San Francisco. Scott also has over 20 years of experience in financial services, working most recently at The Bank of New York as a client executive in the investment manager segment. She will be based in New York. They will report to William Stanton, head of the investment management sales team.

25AUG06: Northern Trust has appointed Jeffrey Conover as head of North American institutional asset servicing sales. Conover will be responsible for North American sales of institutional asset services to global fund managers, large corporate/multinational plans, public funds, Taft-Hartley funds, insurance companies, and the foundation and endowment segments. He will report to Penelope Biggs, senior vice president and head of worldwide asset servicing business development.

Conover returns to Chicago from a very successful three-year assignment as head of the bank’s asset management and asset servicing businesses in Canada. Rob Baillie, formerly head of asset servicing sales and client service at RBC Dexia Investor Services, was recently announced as Conover’s successor in Canada.

In his new position, Conover succeeds Griff Ehrenstrom, who will take on a new role with responsibility for interpreting market trends and communicating Northern Trust’s attributes and strengths to both the personal and institutional markets. Ehrenstrom was appointed to the sales position last August.

24AUG06: Christopher Stuart-Sinclair has joined RBC Dexia as head of operations for Luxembourg. He will be in charge of local service delivery, covering fund services, securities services, shareholder services and client service managers, and will report to Jean Michel Loehr, head of service delivery - Europe. Stuart-Sinclair was head of fund accounting and then chief operating officer of State Street Bank Luxembourg, and has also worked for Robert Fleming & Co and ABN AMRO Investment Funds in Luxembourg.

22AUG06: Northern Trust has hired Stephen Andress as global head of derivatives operations. Andress will manage and oversee the strategic development of Northern’s derivatives processing technology infrastructure, team and capabilities. The role is new and was created in response to the increasing use of derivatives by clients. Andress joins from Commerzbank, where he was global head of OTC derivatives operations and collateral management.

Like other custodians, Northern has seen a major rise in OTC derivatives volumes. Over the last three years, the volume of derivatives trades processed by the bank increased by 30pct each year, and it processed as many OTC derivatives in the first quarter of 2006 as during the whole of 2005.

22AUG06: The Bank of New York has selected Performance Explorer to provide performance and benchmarking for its global securities lending programme.

Performance Explorer is a web-based service that analyses securities lending performance by comparing individual results against the aggregated data of a broad, customizable universe of industry peers. Currently, Performance Explorer collects aggregated data on more than 1.7m securities lending transactions for over 190,000 securities and more than 20,000 portfolios. Recent figures compiled by the service indicated total lendable assets at more than USD10.6trn and total on-loan balances at more than USD2.4trn.

21AUG06: Clive Triance has been given additional responsibilities within Citigroup’s securities and funds services group (SFS) in EMEA. Triance, who will have expanded responsibilities as COO of SFS EMEA, has additionally been appointed EMEA head of direct custody and clearing. He will be the senior representative for SFS EMEA, chairing its management committee and representing it on the global transaction services EMEA management committee and the global SFS management committee. Triance has been acting head of SFS EMEA since Mark Kelley left in May.

18AUG06: Brown Brothers Harriman has appointed Peter Poulin as managing director responsible for fund administration services in the Americas. Prior to joining BBH, Poulin was a partner at IBM Global Business Services where he led the investment servicing consulting practice.

16AUG06: Consolidation in the German market continues. With Unicredit looking to sell the HVB securities services business – a process which is reportedly at the shortlist stage - BNP Paribas Securities Services has acquired the third-party securities clearing and settlement activity of Bankhaus Carl F Plump in Germany, a private banking and asset management firm that is part of the MM Warburg Group.

Based in Bankhaus Plump’s head office in Bremen, the business provides a range of post-trade services, including clearing, settlement and custody, and securities financing provided to German brokers and securities trading banks.

BNP Paribas has also acquired the technology platform developed by Bankhaus Plump to support this activity, and will also establish a local operation in Bremen, which becomes the bank’s second location in Germany. Approximately 15 staff will transfer from Bankhaus Plump to BNP Paribas.

15AUG06: JPMorgan and Threadneedle Investments have signed the contract for investment operations outsourcing. This comes less than two months after the deal was announced, in contrast to the Hermes deal with The Bank of New York, which was announced in December but has yet to be signed.

Threadneedle expects to transfer operational control of its Swindon-based investment operations function to JPMorgan in October 2006. Outsourcing will be achieved through an initial lift-out of Threadneedle’s operations, covering confirmation and settlement, valuations and pricing, and accounting activities for all of Threadneedle’s funds. JPMorgan plans to move from Threadneedle's systems to its own platform by early 2008.

11AUG06: The board of BISYS Group, the troubled outsourcing provider, has accepted the resignation of Russell Fradin, president and chief executive officer. Robert Casale, chairman of the board, will serve as interim president and chief executive officer while the company seeks a permanent successor. Last August BISYS changed its chief financial officer. In March this year it sold its information services business.

BISYS, which has struggled with accounting discrepancies for several years, also announced that it has initiated a process “to explore strategic alternatives as part of its continued effort to maximise shareholder value”. The board has hired Bear, Stearns to advise it in connection with this process.

10AUG06: Mellon has appointed Fraser Priestley as managing director of the international division of its performance measurement, attribution and investment analysis subsidiary, Mellon Analytical Solutions (MAS). Priestley replaces the outgoing managing director, Mick Brant, who has decided to leave the business to pursue other opportunities. Priestley was previously head of European operations for MAS.

Following a major management reorganisation in May, Mellon has now lost three senior managers in London: George McKay, head of international investment manager solutions, left in May and David Copley, head of UK investment operations outsourcing and fund accounting, moved to Northern Trust in July.

10AUG06: BHF BNY Securities Services GmbH, the securities servicing joint venture between BHF Bank and The Bank of New York, has been appointed by SIGNAL IDUNA Group to provide a range of global custody services. The insurance group, which ranks among the leading providers in Germany, will use BHF BNY Securities Services GmbH’s depotbank services for its securities investment funds.

The mandate is said to cover “several billion euros” invested in a number of special funds managed by seven investment companies. Depotbank services will include custody and administration, risk management, performance measurement and attribution, compliance/limit controlling and IFRS monitoring, as well as commission recapture and securities lending.

Ulrich Leitermann, CFO of SIGNAL IDUNA Group, said: “BHF BNY Securities Services’ comprehensive service package is very impressive and all our requirements were met quickly and with great flexibility. As an insurance company, we offer first class services and this is what we expect from our partners, too.”

09AUG06: Scott Dickinson has been promoted to an extended senior relationship management role with BNP Paribas Securities Services. He will now head the global relationship management team in London, covering both the institutional investor and financial intermediaries client segments. Based in London, Dickinson reports jointly to Margaret Harwood-Jones, head of client segment - institutional investors and Steve Chew, head of client segment - financial intermediaries. Dickinson has been a senior global relationship manager at BNP Paribas since September 2004, covering institutional investors.

09AUG06: Further change at Citigroup in London, where Mark Kelley, who left in May, has yet to be replaced as head of EMEA securities and fund services unit. Now lifelong Citibanker Dave Phillips, who has been head of financial institutions client management for global transaction services in EMEA, is to move to New York to become global head of GTS financial institutions coverage. He will report to Chris Foskett, GTS head of client coverage.

08AUG06: State Street has been selected by Virgin Money to provide an integrated suite of investment solutions, including investment servicing, transfer agency and asset management for GBP2.6bn in assets.

The new mandate includes global custody, unit pricing, fund accounting, asset management and transfer agency services. State Street Global Advisors (SSgA), the investment management group of State Street, will manage the assets in a passive equity strategy; transfer agency services will be provided by International Financial Data Services (IFDS), a joint venture between State Street and DST Systems Inc.

“State Street and IFDS offered us a full-service integrated solution for all of our investment needs,” said Mark Hodgkinson, CEO of Virgin Money. “We were impressed by the scope of activities all parties were able to offer us and are very pleased to be moving into this partnership together.”

03AUG06: The Bank of New York has been appointed by The United Services Trustee (UST) in the UK as its sole global custodian for the UST combined charitable capital fund and the UST combined charitable income fund.

The UST was set up by the then War Department in 1918 to manage the welfare and benevolent assets of the armed forces after the First World War.

Mike Robertson, services charity adviser to the UST, said: “The Bank of New York’s expertise in this area was undoubtedly a significant factor in the board’s decision. With its heavy investment in technology and customised servicing solutions we believe that the Bank will provide an excellent service tailored to our needs.”

03AUG06: Brenda Petsche has been appointed as head of HSBC’s Alternative Fund Services business in Guernsey. She is responsible for overseeing all day-to-day operations of the Guernsey office and for implementing the division’s global strategy.

Petsche joined Bank of Bermuda in Guernsey in March 2001, as head of the operation’s valuation department. She was promoted to head of fund administration in 2005.

03AUG06: Citigroup has launched a trading and portfolio management solution for hedge funds that supports multi-strategy, multi-asset class and multi-currency investing. OpenPrime allows funds to have multiple prime brokerage relationships in a secure, neutrally hosted environment. OpenPrime uses Linedata’s Beauchamp technology and Citigroup’s support, middle-office and fund administration services.

This development follows the announcement in June that Credit Suisse had teamed up with Paladyne Systems to offer a ‘multi-prime’ solution to hedge funds.

01AUG06: JPMorgan Worldwide Securities Services has hired Ewen Melling as technology strategist for investment outsourcing services in Europe, Middle East and Africa, which is a new position. He joins from F&C Asset Management in London, where he was director of IT, and has over 15 years of experience in the fund management industry.

Melling will be responsible for outsourcing technology, working in the business group led by Susan Ebenston, the executive for all fund servicing, fiduciary and outsourcing products outside the US.

31JUL06: Fortis has appointed Peter Walker as head of investment accounting for Prime Fund Solutions (Curaçao) N.V. He joins from HSBC in Brazil, having previously worked with KPMG in Brazil and Guernsey and PricewaterhouseCoopers in Switzerland.

27JUL06: HSBC has entered into an agreement to acquire Westpac’s sub-custody business in Australia and New Zealand. The consideration will be up to AUD150m (approximately USD112.5 million) subject to the business meeting certain performance standards over a six-month transition period. The acquisition is expected to be completed by 31 August 2006. Completion of the transaction is subject to obtaining the necessary regulatory approval.

The acquisition will make the Australasian market the third largest by assets among HSBC's sub-custody businesses in the Asia-Pacific region. At the beginning of this year Westpac had AUD275bn of assets under custody in Australia and NZD15bn in New Zealand.

27JUL06: The Bank of New York has handed out new and expanded roles for several of its top executives.

Bruce Van Saun, vice chairman, will take on leadership of the bank's market-related businesses including asset management, private banking, global markets and securities lending. He will continue to oversee the capital markets business and the corporate development function. He will relinquish his duties as chief financial officer as he moves to this new role.

Thomas (Todd) Gibbons, senior executive vice president, will become chief financial officer. Gibbons is currently the bank's chief risk officer. He will continue to oversee the risk management functions in his expanded role.

Donald Monks, vice chairman, will take on expanded responsibilities in the newly-created role of chief administrative officer of the bank. In addition to his current role as head of the global operations and technology organisation, Monks will assume additional responsibility for human resources, compliance, corporate marketing, corporate communications and quality assurance.

Brian Rogan, senior executive vice president, will assume additional responsibility for broker dealer services, global payments and trade services. Rogan will continue to lead the bank's issuer services business, which includes corporate trust, depositary receipts and stock transfer.

Van Saun, Gibbons and Monks will continue to report to chairman and chief executive officer Thomas Renyi. Rogan will continue to report to president Gerald Hassell.

26JUL06: Northern Trust has set up a dedicated private equity fund administration team to offer services for private equity funds and related fund structures domiciled in Dublin.

Services include fund administration services, financial reporting services, investor services and corporate governance services for funds, fund of funds, limited partnerships and companies.

Northern Trust has an established private equity fund administration centre in Guernsey. Dublin is now also becoming a more popular domicile for private equity and related funds because it has the benefits of being an offshore centre whilst still being within the European Union.

26JUL06: BNP Paribas Securities Services has appointed Frank Roden as global product head of transfer agency and retail. He will move to Luxembourg in August and will report in his new role to Frederic Perard, product head for global funds services.

Roden will be responsible for the development of product and service delivery to fund promoters and distributors of financial products to the retail markets. He was previously location head for BNP Paribas Securities Services in Ireland. He is succeeded in this post by Paul Daly, who has been head of sales and relationship management since 2001.

Peter Townsend joins the firm as head of operations for BNP Paribas Fund Services in Dublin. He reports locally to Paul Daly and globally to Philippe Ricard, head of fund services operations. Townsend joins after six years at BISYS Hedge Fund Services Ltd. in Bermuda, where he was vice president of implementation management.

21JUL06: Northern Trust has appointed Robert Baillie as president and chief executive officer of The Northern Trust Company, Canada, as well as chairman, president and chief executive officer of NT Global Advisors, Inc. Based in Toronto, Baillie is responsible for all of Northern Trust’s operations in the Canadian market.

Baillie joins from RBC Dexia Investor Services, where he was head of sales and relationship management in North America. He succeeds Jeff Conover, who has held the two positions for the last three years and will return to Northern Trust’s headquarters in Chicago.

In his dual roles, Baillie will report to Steve Potter, head of international, and William Huffman, chairman, chief executive officer and president of Northern Trust Global Advisors.

21JUL06: State Street has been awarded a GBP100m mandate from Oxford Investment Partners to provide investment services for its newly launched collective investment vehicle. State Street will provide custody, fund accounting and transfer agency services from its operations in Ireland.

“State Street was able to provide our new fund complex with full investment service support from our initial product development and structuring phase, through to its launch,” said Paul Martin, chief operating officer of Oxford Investment Partners. “We chose a provider who we knew was committed to the investment servicing business and one with proven expertise in complex fund structures.”

21JUL06: As part of its strategic alliance with Wilshire Associates, The Bank of New York has begun offering its institutional clients new and enhanced risk and performance analytics for both global equity and fixed income assets. With the initial rollout, clients with more than USD300bn of assets have already been converted to the new attribution products.

The new analytical capabilities enable institutional investors to identify, monitor and allocate risk using a variety of criteria, including region, country, industry, investment style, sector and currency. Users now have the ability to access the service through INFORM, the bank’s internet-based information delivery and transaction platform, or through Wilshire’s applications.

19JUL06: In what is almost certainly the largest deal of its kind, Freddie Mac, the US housing support agency, has selected JPMorgan to provide transaction processing, custody and recordkeeping services for USD700bn of mortgage-backed securities and short-term assets.

JPMorgan will provide administrative and settlement services for Freddie Mac’s longer-term assets - primarily Freddie Mac-issued mortgage-backed securities - and an estimated USD70bn liquidity and contingency portfolio of short-term assets with a variety of issuers that support mortgage investment and debt-funding activities.

The decision comes just days before the Federal Reserve implements its policy to end interest-free intraday credit to government-sponsored enterprises such as Freddie Mac. As a result, these GSEs will have to make different arrangements for the early payment of investors in their debt securities. As part of this deal, JPMorgan will facilitate that process.

“Freddie Mac is committed to achieving a higher level of organisational strength and focus across all of our operations,” said Joe Rossi, senior vice president for Freddie Mac. “By working with a world-class provider like JPMorgan, we are simplifying our operating environment, saving time and money and more efficiently managing our investment assets at the Federal Reserve Bank and the Depository Trust Company. JPMorgan’s state-of-the-art systems, scalable infrastructure and technology management experience with governments, central banks, make them a terrific choice for Freddie Mac.” Those with long memories will recognise Rossi’s name: he joined Freddie Mac in 2001 from Mellon, where he was chief operations officer for global securities services, and was previously at Chase/JPMorgan.

19JUL06: State Street, the first of the major trust banks to report earnings, has turned in a strong second quarter. Servicing fees were up 11pct, with total assets under custody up 13pct at USD10.9trn. Of particular note was the performance in trading services, which includes foreign exchange trading revenue, brokerage and transition management: fees rose to USD258m for the quarter, up 53pct from a year ago. The increase was driven by strength in foreign exchange.

19JUL06: You and I may never have heard of Apex Fund Services, which describes itself as one of the world’s fastest growing fund administrators, but it is an industry leader in one respect: it has become the first administrator to be given approval by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) to operate from the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). Apex Funds Service is headquartered in Bermuda, with offices in Dubai, Mauritius and Cyprus.

Peter Hughes, managing director of Apex Fund Services, said: “We expect the DIFC to become a key domicile for the global funds industry following enactment of the Collective Investment Law 2006 – the Middle East’s first regulatory framework for the funds industry. Being the first fund administrator at the DIFC increases our ability to provide an enhanced level of service to a wider range of clients”.

There are currently 15 asset management firms with licenses to operate from the DIFC, while three funds have applied for licenses under the Collective Investment Law 2006.

19JUL06: CIBC Mellon has appointed Stuart Plummer as executive director, business development for the pension fund segment, and Colleen Coman as executive director, business development for the insurance segment. Plummer has been with CIBC Mellon since 1997; Coman joined recently having spent the last 15 years at “at a major Canadian financial institution”.

19JUL06: CACEIS, the third force in French fund administration, has been attributed strong ratings by Standard & Poor's: AA- (long term), stable outlook, and A-1+ (short term). These ratings reflect the significant support from its two shareholders, Crédit Agricole S.A. and Caisse Nationale des Caisses d’Epargne. CACEIS holds EUR1,688bn under custody, with EUR826bn under administration.

18JUL06: All banks like to emphasise their cross-sales credentials, so JPMorgan will be pleased with its deal with UJA-Federation of New York, which has appointed the bank to provide custody and accounting services for its USD800m pooled investment account.

“We chose JPMorgan because of our long standing relationship with the firm, the high level of quality service they have delivered over the years, and the overall efficiencies to be realised,” said Lawrence Swilling, UJA’s controller. JPMorgan also provides treasury services to UJA and trustee services to its retirement plan.

14JUL06: Slowly but surely, State Street is reacting to the charge that its decision-making process is too Boston-centric. In the UK, it has unveiled a further devolution of power, appointing Peter O’Neill, the London-based executive vice president and head of State Street’s European investment research and trading business, to an expanded role which will now incorporate the firm’s investment servicing activities in the United Kingdom, Middle East and Southern Africa (UKMEA).

State Street says its business outside the US is growing twice as fast as in the US. In the first quarter of 2006, State Street claims to have won more than 100 new mandates in Europe.

O’Neill joined State Street in 1985.He is a member of State Street’s European Executive Board, the company’s senior management structure in the region. In this newly created role, Peter Baker, head of investment servicing for IS UKMEA, and Dan Wiener, senior manager for State Street Global Markets in Europe, will report to O’Neill.

14JUL06: The Bank of New York has been appointed servicer and sub-advisor for the WisdomTree exchange-traded funds. BNY will provide worldwide custody, accounting, fund administration and transfer agency services, as well as serve as sub-advisor for each of the first 20 WisdomTree ETFs. WisdomTree Investment, Inc. is a publicly traded company specialising in the creation of proprietary stock indices.

13JUL06: Northern Trust has appointed David Copley as head of investment operations outsourcing for Europe, a new position. Copley, who is based in London, is responsible for overseeing the operational implementation of Northern Trust’s investment outsourcing clients.

Copley has over nine years’ investment management operations experience. He joins Northern Trust from Mellon, where he was head of UK investment operations outsourcing and fund accounting. Previously, he was at Deutsche Asset Management for six years, latterly as head of UK operations.

12JUL06: Nordea Bank S.A. in Luxembourg, a division of the Nordic region’s largest financial services group, has consolidated global custody for USD28bn of the group's international fund and private client assets with JPMorgan. Last year Nordea struck a marketing alliance with The Bank of New York for the Nordic and Baltic regions.

11JUL06: Lee Burchell has joined JPMorgan Worldwide Securities Services as vice president in the pension fund sales team in the UK. Burchell joins from The Bank of New York, where he was vice president and client executive for European pension funds. Burchell joins a team led by Benjie Fraser, head of business development for European pension funds.

11JUL06: Euroclear Bank is to offer cross-border settlement, custody and collateral management services for Japanese government bonds in 2007, subject to legal and regulatory approvals. Euroclear Bank’s services for JGBs, a market valued at approximately EUR6trn, will complete its coverage of all the world’s major government debt securities.

Euroclear Bank has appointed Mizuho Corporate Bank as its local depository for JGBs. Mizuho already acts as one of two Euroclear Bank local depositories for other Japanese securities.

Following a simplification of reporting requirements for JGBs, Euroclear Bank’s services will be offered to foreign and Japanese resident holders that are exempt from Japanese withholding tax. Approximately EUR300bn of these securities are currently held by overseas investors.

11JUL06: Just days before the European Commission outlines its action plan for securities clearing and settlement, the European Central Bank has announced that it is considering the possibility of providing securities settlement services. The Eurosystem says that it is “conscious of the need for further integration in market infrastructures, and extracting the benefits from the implementation of the TARGET2 payment system”. The service would cover securities transactions in central bank money, leading to the processing of both securities and cash settlements on a single platform through common procedures. At its meeting on 6 July 2006, the governing council of the European Central Bank decided to explore the idea of securities settlement in the euro area. A final decision on this project is expected by early 2007.

11JUL06: SEI, a provider of outsourced asset management, investment processing and investment operations services, has been selected to provide its new global wealth service to HSBC’s UK onshore private banking business. The signing represents SEI’s first private banking client to use the global wealth service.

The global wealth service will support HSBC’s end-to-end business processing needs for the front, middle and back offices. The service will use SEI’s people, processes and technology to provide HSBC with investment strategy management, decision support and client accounting, portfolio administration and reporting services.

06JUL06: LCH.Clearnet has dropped a small bombshell by announcing that David Hardy, group CEO, is to leave the company. Since the merger at the end of 2003, LCH.Clearnet has disappointed its users by failing to deliver promised benefits, and there is growing speculation that it will eventually strike some form of deal with Deutsche Börse and its Eurex Clearing business.

At the same time, Chris Tupker, the outgoing chairman of Euroclear, is to become chairman of LCH.Clearnet. Hervé Saint-Sauveur, who has been a director of LCH.Clearnet Group Ltd since its creation and is currently adviser to the chairman of Société Générale, has been appointed vice chairman.

04JUL06: KAS BANK has signed an agreement with Svenska Handelsbanken for the clearing of stock exchange transactions by remote members of both the Copenhagen Stock Exchange and the Oslo Stock Exchange.

With agreements already in place for the clearing of trades on the Helsinki Exchanges and the Stockholm Stock Exchange, KAS BANK can now offer these services for the entire Nordic region.

04JUL06: ABN AMRO Mellon has opened a representative office in Beijing. Located on the premises of ABN AMRO Beijing, the office will be run by Terry Zhou Quangong.

03JUL06: Further good news for ABN AMRO Mellon, which has been selected by the North Yorkshire Pension Fund to provide custody, investment accounting and performance measurement services for assets totalling GBP1bn (EUR1.45bn). JPMorgan is the outgoing custodian. Thomas Murray conducted a formal review for the fund.

Neil Sellstrom, principal accountant at North Yorkshire County Council, said: “ABN AMRO Mellon’s extensive accounting and performance reporting suite was a major factor in our decision, as was the enthusiasm displayed by the ABN AMRO Mellon team during the RFP process.”

30JUN06: The Bank of New York has sprung a major surprise with the announcement that it is to spin off its BNY Securities Group business unit, which offers trade execution, commission management, independent research and transition management. BNY is joining forces with Eze Castle Software and GTCR Golder Rauner, LLC, a private equity firm, to form a new company that will bring together BNY Securities Group’s businesses with Eze Castle Software, a provider of trade order management and related investment technologies.

The new firm, to be called BNY ConvergEx Group, is expected to be established by the end of September, pending regulatory approval. The new company will be a global agency brokerage and technology company offering pre-trade, trade, and post-trade solutions for traditional money managers, hedge funds, broker-dealers, corporations and plan sponsors.

The Bank of New York Company and GTCR Golder Rauner will each hold a 35.4 percent stake in the new company, with the balance held by Eze Castle Software’s investors and BNY ConvergEx Group’s management team.

The new company, with proforma 2005 revenues of approximately USD340m, will be an affiliate of The Bank of New York and will be reflected on the company’s financial statements as an equity investment. The transaction is not expected to result in any net gain or loss for The Bank of New York and is expected to be neutral to earnings.

In addition to Eze Castle Software, the BNY Securities Group businesses to be included in BNY ConvergEx Group will be BNY Brokerage, Lynch, Jones & Ryan, G-Port, Westminster Research and BNY Jaywalk. Each business will retain its respective brand name and continue to operate as it does today. In addition, The Bank of New York’s B-Trade and G-Trade businesses are expected to become part of BNY ConvergEx Group in 2008, although in the interim they will continue to be owned by The Bank of New York. The Bank of New York Company’s Pershing subsidiary, a leading global provider of clearing and financial services outsourcing, is not included in the transaction.

Approximately 635 employees from BNY Securities Group and Eze Castle Software will become part of BNY ConvergEx Group. Joe Velli, currently senior executive vice president of The Bank of New York and head of BNY Securities Group, will become chairman and chief executive officer of the group.

29JUN06: Having narrowly lost out in its bid to win the Threadneedle outsourcing mandate, BNP Paribas Securities Services will be celebrating its deal with ING in Europe. The bank has signed a letter of intent with ING Luxembourg and ING Investment Management to provide fund administration and investment compliance monitoring services for ING’s Belgian and Luxembourg-domiciled funds, representing EUR 33bn of assets under administration. Previously handled in-house at ING, the decision means that approximately 60 ING staff in Luxembourg will transfer to BNP Paribas.

In 2002 The Bank of New York established a marketing alliance with ING in Europe, covering Germany, Benelux, central and eastern Europe. BNY has subsequently won contracts from ING Investment Management in Europe and the US.

29JUN06: RBC Dexia Investor Services has been selected as Canadian custodian and securities lending provider for ING Canada's portfolio of over CAD7bn. ING Canada is the largest provider of property and casualty insurance in Canada.

“After a comprehensive review process, we concluded that RBC Dexia Investor Services could provide ING Canada with a robust back office platform that will support our activities in the upcoming years," said Marc Provost, senior vice president, managing director and chief investment officer of ING Investment Management, Inc.

29JUN06: CIBC Mellon has been appointed as asset servicing provider for Balancing Pool, a government agency that manages the power purchase arrangements of major power plants in Alberta. Services will include safekeeping, settlement and accounting.

“With a fund of more than CAD500m, and the potential for additional growth, we were looking for a partner who could provide us with leading-edge technology and local client service," said Gloria Fournier, chief financial officer, Balancing Pool. "CIBC Mellon's technology, servicing and reporting capabilities made them the appropriate choice as our asset service provider.”

29JUN06: Luc Leleux has been appointed as business development director of Fortis Prime Fund Solutions in Luxembourg. Leleux will head up the sales team focused on diversifying and developing the client base of Prime Fund Solutions in Luxembourg. Leleux reports to Loris Di Vora, commercial director of Prime Fund Solutions Luxembourg.

Prior to joining Fortis, Leleux was business development director for continental Europe at RBC Dexia Investor Services. Before that, he held different positions in the investment fund industry in Luxembourg, including Banque Privée Edmond de Rothschild, Chase and State Street.

27JUN06: The Bank of New York has appointed Chong Jin Leow as managing director and head of investor services in Asia. Leow, who will be based in Singapore, will manage the bank’s investor services business in the Asia Pacific region.

He joins BNY from State Street in Singapore, where he was responsible for the combined State Street and Deutsche Bank investor services business in all Asian countries, excluding Japan and Australia.

27JUN06: HSBC Securities Services has appointed Anna Shill as deputy head of IFS tax services, Europe, reporting to John Everett, head of tax. Shill previously spent nine years at JP Morgan, most recently as vice president for global tax for the bank’s custody business in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

27JUN06: ProShares has selected JPMorgan to provide a range of fund services to support eight new exchange-traded funds. Services will include accounting, administration, transfer agency and custody services.

“ProShares selected JPMorgan because they have the people, technology and experience to help us make the launch of ProShares exchange-traded funds a success,” said Michael Sapir, CEO of ProShare Advisors LLC.

26JUN06: It has been increasingly clear that the race to win the outsourcing contract for Threadneedle Investments had boiled down to JPMorgan and BNP Paribas. Many other banks walked away from the transaction after struggling to see how they could make it work financially, and Threadneedle’s aggressive negotiating tactics were not to everyone’s taste (where, you might ask, were The Bank of New York, that lifted out Threadneedle’s retail fund administration business in 2004?).

JPMorgan has prevailed, and has now entered into exclusive negotiations with Threadneedle, with the expectation of finalising contractual arrangements during July. Operational control of Threadneedle’s Swindon-based investment operations function would transfer to JPMorgan in October 2006.

The outsourcing will be achieved through a lift-out of Threadneedle’s operations covering confirmation and settlement, valuations and pricing, and accounting activities for all of Threadneedle’s funds.

Crispin Henderson, managing director of Threadneedle Investments, said: “We believe this is excellent news for our current and future clients. This deal allows Threadneedle to focus on its key strengths as a fund manager - providing excellent investment performance for its clients. Our clients will benefit from JPMorgan’s strengths in service administration and commitment to providing state-of-the-art capabilities in derivatives and complex instruments - an integral part of many of Threadneedle’s products. We aim to achieve these benefits with a high degree of continuity, as the only real difference in the short term will be a change of operational control – the people, processes and systems will remain unchanged.”

Threadneedle was advised throughout the selection and negotiation process by, amongst others, Troika, the specialist financial services management consultancy.

Threadneedle Asset Management Limited manages more than GBP73bn (USD131bn) and is the UK's third largest retail investment funds group. Threadneedle is a subsidiary of Ameriprise Financial, Inc.

26JUN06: RBC Dexia Investor Services in Australia has been selected to provide custody, investment administration and unit registry services for Denning Pryce’s newly-launched Equity Income Fund. Denning Pryce is a start-up boutique asset management company specialising in listed equity and derivative-based funds management.

“We were impressed by RBC Dexia Investor Services’ extensive knowledge and experience with derivatives, as well as their reputation for excellent client service,” said Michael Pryce, founder and director. “We are confident that we have selected the best partner in the marketplace to help us successfully launch this fund and help to grow our business over the long term.”

26JUN06: BNP Paribas has appointed Jason Nabi as head of financial intermediaries in the UK. Based in London, Nabi will be a member of the UK management team, reporting to Tony Solway, Head of BNP Paribas Securities Services in the UK with an additional reporting line to Steve Chew, global head of financial intermediaries coverage.

Prior to his appointment, Nabi led sales and business development in the UK. Before that, he spent several years in sales management positions at Bloomberg and IBM Global Services.

26JUN06: This industry has few enough journalists who have any depth of understanding and knowledge, so it is always disappointing when one decides to jump the fence. Last year it was Andrew Capon, who left Euromoney to join State Street. Now Tim Steele has joined ABN AMRO Mellon Global Securities Services as head of PR & media relations, succeeding Robert White, who has left to join Xchanging, the outsourcing firm.

With almost 20 years’ experience, Steele has covered the global asset servicing business for the past decade, launching International Custody & Fund Administration (ICFA) magazine before moving on to edit Global Investment Services (formerly Clearing & Settlement). After a stint as managing editor of the GSCS Benchmarks stable of publications, he established his own freelance business, contributing articles and commentary to leading European and US asset servicing publications and providing editorial and consultancy services to custody banks and other institutions.

Steele is based in London and reports to ABN AMRO Mellon’s Silvia Maulini, head of marketing & communications.

17JUN06: Mellon has been named custodian for Makena Capital, a recently launched investment management firm located in California. Mellon will provide domestic and global custody, monthly valuations, securities lending and foreign exchange support.

17JUN06: RBC Dexia Investor Services has appointed Brent Wilkins as head of sales and relationship management for the Americas. Wilkins was sales and relationship management regional head for central Canada. He succeeds Robert Baillie, who is leaving to accept a leadership role with another organisation.

14JUN06: Deutsche Bank is to provide general clearing member (GCM) services for non-clearing members (NCMs) of the Dubai International Financial Exchange (DIFX). Acting through its Amsterdam branch, the GCM services are provided by the bank’s domestic custody services unit for securities listed on DIFX.

Deutsche Bank joined the DIFX as a member when the exchange originally opened in 2005, and was the first member to begin trading. The bank currently lists nine equity-related index certificates on the exchange. It has offered sub-custody services since February 2006. With the introduction of its GCM services, Deutsche Bank now provides an integrated service for trades conducted on DIFX, from trade execution through to clearing, settlement and custody.

13JUN06: State Street has expanded its relationship with Illinois-based Calamos Investments to provide fund accounting services for nine open-end mutual funds and one variable insurance fund, totalling about USD29.8bn in assets. State Street now provides services for 14 of Calamos' funds with approximately USD36bn in assets. State Street began providing fund accounting services to Calamos in 2004.

“State Street has demonstrated a commitment to our business since we began working together more than two years ago,” said Nimish Bhatt, senior vice president of Calamos. “As we looked to consolidate service providers, State Street emerged as the clear leader in fund accounting during our rigorous due diligence process. The expertise of its client service team has been instrumental in providing support for the complex securities held in our mutual funds.”

13JUN06: Fortis is to offer brokerage activities for real estate investment funds, and has hired two real estate analysts, Matthijs Storm and Frank Jansen. Fortis says that “a real estate product is a logical addition to the range because local expertise is crucial when advising institutional investors on the real estate sector and providing them with related services”.

13JUN06: Istituto Nazionale di Previdenza dei Giornalisti Italiani, the national pension fund for Italian journalists, has appointed BNP Paribas Securities Services as depositary bank for its securities assets, with a value of EUR600m. Services include global custody, investment compliance and investment accounting. The transition of services is planned for completion by July 2006.

08JUN06: Citigroup has created a pension pooling structure using the Irish Common Contractual Fund (CCF) for Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM), one of the UK’s largest fund management groups.

The CCF is a tax-transparent mutual fund specifically designed to meet the twin objectives of asset aggregation and tax transparency. The Citigroup solution enables LGIM to distribute the CCF to a large number of European pension fund clients, allowing clients to realise their full entitlements under existing double taxation treaties. In 2004 Deutsche Asset Management launched a similar scheme, with State Street as investment services provider.

Mike Craston, managing director, corporate pensions, LGIM, said: “The CCF combines LGIM’s expertise in index fund management with Citigroup’s experience in fund services and custody. We have worked closely with Citigroup to establish the structure which provides our clients with a cost-effective, pooled solution with the benefit of tax transparency.”

08JUN06: Slowly but surely the world’s major custodians are adapting to the need for product-driven strategies, and The Bank of New York is the latest to see the light. BNY is creating an Office of Innovation to accelerate the pace of product innovation across its securities servicing businesses. The office will be headed by the bank’s chief information officer, Kurt Woetzel, who has been promoted to senior executive vice president and continues to report to vice chairman Don Monks.

Michiel de Nooijer joins the Netherlands relationship management team from AEGON Asset Management. Elizabeth Westwood joins the UK pension fund team from Northern Trust. Beth Dowling joins the UK pension fund team after working as head of media and consultant relations. Bernadette Vennells joins the UK investment manager relations team from Newton Investment Management.

07JUN06: Royal Mail Pension Plan has consolidated GBP2.2bn of assets with JPMorgan in a move to bring all of its segregated assets under one global custodian. The plan has approximately GBP22bn of assets. JPMorgan has acted as global custodian for Royal Mail Pension Plan since 1999.

06JUN06: Robert Fort and David Whitney have been appointed to new positions at Mellon Global Securities Lending. Fort joins in a new position as director of US collateral reinvestment, whilst Whitney has been appointed director of US lending, both leading their respective teams at MGSL's headquarters in Pittsburgh. They will report directly to Kathy Rulong, executive vice president and executive director of MGSL.

Fort was formerly chief investment officer for Reserve Management Corporation, where he oversaw the firm's USD30bn mutual fund business. Whitney has spent the past 11 years with MGSL, working as a business analyst, equity lender and international lending manager on MGSL's Pittsburgh trading desk.

06JUN06: JPMorgan’s securities clearing business, GlobeClear, has launched a clearing and settlement solution for on-exchange trades across the Nordic region. SEB will act as sub-custodian. Its tri–party clearing arrangement now covers the entire Nordic region. The bank says that a broker–dealer has already signed up as the first client.

02JUN06: Northern Trust has appointed Terry Drewett and Graeme Partridge as vice presidents in London. Drewett has joined to introduce and manage initiatives to enhance trade process flows across Northern Trust’s outsourcing, traditional and alternative funds, and funds of funds trade processing platform. He joins from Financial Models Corp where he was a business development manager.

Partridge’s role is to ensure that Northern Trust’s operational processes continue to be structured in a way that best meets client needs whilst remaining scaleable to support future growth. He joins from Credit Suisse, where he had been brought in as a consultant involved in an operational review of the US equity and fixed income businesses.

02JUN06: BNP Paribas Securities Services has appointed Jean-Marc Pasquet as managing director and head of securities services for Asia Pacific, including Australasia. The appointment will take effect in August this year when he will relocate from Paris to Sydney to replace Gail Burke, who is to become chief operating officer for the UK.

01JUN06: Northern Trust has been selected by the Delaware Public Employees’ Retirement System as custodian for the system’s nine retirement plans and four commingled pension funds, totalling USD6.5bn in assets. The agreement includes domestic and global custody and related services, including cash management and securities lending.

01JUN06: Charles Schwab Investment Management has appointed JPMorgan to provide outsourcing services for its 5,000 separately managed accounts. JPMorgan is providing CSIM with outsourcing services including shadow accounting, account reconciliation, new account setup, performance calculation and account maintenance.

“We have been very pleased with the technology platform and the operations resources that JPMorgan has built. Their ability to implement in such a short period of time has been equally impressive,” said Ed Patron, vice president and chief technology officer for CSIM.

01JUN06: The Bank of New York has promoted Richard Brueckner, chief executive officer of Pershing LLC, to senior executive vice president. Brueckner joined BNY in 2003, when the bank acquired Pershing from Credit Suisse First Boston.

31MAY06: NexGen Financial LP, a Canadian asset manager, has appointed State Street and International Financial Data Services to provide custody, fund accounting and transfer agency services for its newly launched fund complex. NexGen offers 26 funds designed to alleviate the tax burden associated with traditional mutual funds.

“The accounting and recordkeeping requirements of these funds demand the proven expertise of providers who have the capabilities to handle complex instruments,” said James Hunter, founder of NexGen. “We are confident that State Street and IFDS are uniquely suited to offer the knowledge and service we need to build a competitive, world-class fund offering.”

31MAY06: Some participants were starting to get a little concerned about the radio silence from Euroclear over its progress with the much-heralded single settlement engine (SSE), so they will be relieved to hear that the initial phase has just been launched. The SSE project is intended to consolidate five Euroclear group settlement platforms into one.

The SSE will be launched in phases during 2006: Euroclear France went live on 29 May; CREST is expected to be launched in late summer; and Euroclear Bank before the end of the year. The Belgian and Dutch markets have chosen to move to the SSE via ESES (Euroclear Settlement for Euronext-zone Securities), which is not scheduled for launch until late 2007.

Once fully implemented, the SSE will perform the core settlement function for trades submitted by the Euroclear France, CREST and Euroclear Bank legacy systems, each of which will continue to serve as the front-end platform for clients of these entities.

30MAY06: Henderson Global Investors, the UK-based asset manager with GBP68bn (USD126bn) of assets under management, is to outsource middle and back office services for its hedge funds to JPMorgan’s hedge fund services unit.

Under the agreement, JPMorgan will take over Henderson’s hedge fund middle and back office and its employees which service 14 hedge funds representing approximately USD2bn of assets. Henderson has signed a multi-year contract for JPMorgan to provide daily operational services and fund administration for their hedge funds.

The agreement comes two months after JPMorgan acquired the middle and back office operations of Paloma Partners Management Company.

Shirley Garrood, chief operating officer at Henderson, said: “We believe the outsourced administration market is now mature enough for us to make a step change in the way we administer these highly complex products. Our aim was to find a sustainable solution for a fast growing part of our business which allows us to build and launch new funds quickly into the market. Underpinning this is a requirement for a fully connected middle and back office daily solution, supported by strong investor servicing capabilities. The above factors, in particular, played to JPMorgan’s strengths.”

25MAY06: Less than three months after due diligence began, Royal London Asset Management has concluded its negotiations with HSBC Securities Services, which has been appointed as its custodian and administrator. RLAM will outsource global custody, securities lending and investment administration for its combined USD40bn in assets to HSBC in phases from June 2006. Unit trust accounting, which was outsourced in 2004 to JPMorgan, is not included in the deal.

Andrew Carter, Royal London Asset Management’s chief executive officer, said: “Outsourcing to HSBC is the best option for both our business and staff and is in line with current industry thinking. Combining resources offers the advantages of scale through the provision of common platforms and access to new technology.”

RLAM’s decision is another reverse for JPMorgan, which was the incumbent custodian. Richard James, head of operations for RLAM, said: “The technological fit played a large part in our decision to outsource to HSBC but it was the cultural fit that sealed the deal. The fact that we managed to move from heads of agreement to contract signing within 3 months, whilst maintaining a business as usual approach to work load, proves this - quite an achievement. We look forward to continuing the excellent co-operation between HSBC and RLAM during the execution process over the coming months.”

23MAY06: The GBP3.2bn Merchant Navy Officers Pension Fund (MNOPF) has moved its custody mandate to ABN AMRO Mellon Global Securities Services with effect from 2 May 2006. ABN AMRO Mellon will provide global custody, investment accounting, securities lending and additional value-added services including investment monitoring services.

Alick Stevenson, director of investments for the fund, said: “The decision to move was taken after a long and very thorough review of MNOPF's custody needs, using an external tender process.”

23MAY06: A new level of transparency has been introduced from an unlikely source: the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ). Announcing its appointment of The Bank of New York as global custodian of the fund, SOFAZ has disclosed a lot of information about the tender process.

“In addition to public tender announcements, invitations were sent to 16 financial institutions providing global custodial services and possessing a credit rating of AA- or higher,” SOFAZ said. “Eleven institutions expressed interest and eight submitted tender proposals. The latter were: BNP Paribas, Citigroup, HSBC, JP Morgan Chase, Royal Bank of Canada, Societe Generаle, State Street and The Bank of New York.

“The tender proposal evaluation criteria included 18 parameters both technical and financial. The rankings are on scale of 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest) and are average of rankings of the five tender committee members. The rankings of the contenders as per the evaluation table compiled by the SOFAZ tender committee are summarised below:

Arzu Huseynov, head of investment, SOFAZ, said, “We appointed The Bank of New York as it stood head and shoulders above its competitors in meeting our complex brief. It was crucial for us to reduce our custody fees because of our considerable fund growth and the bank demonstrated that it has the systems, infrastructure and team to make this possible. We are looking forward to working with the team and utilising the economies of scale that this new relationship will bring.”

New York based Overture Financial Services LLC assisted the fund during the tender procedures.

22MAY06: ABN AMRO Mellon is gradually becoming one of the leading forces in the UK pension fund sector. Having already established itself as a serious contender after taking the EUR6bn GlaxoSmithKline scheme away from The Bank of New York last year, it has now won a seat on the custody roster for the GBP17bn Railways Pension Trustee Company Limited (Railpen). ABN AMRO Mellon will become a new global custodian alongside The Bank of New York, an existing provider. Railpen is the industry-wide pension scheme for the UK railways.

Frank Johnson, finance director at Railpen Investments, said: “Following a detailed tender exercise, the Trustee has made the new appointment of ABN AMRO Mellon as the second of our global custodians. In addition the Trustee has reappointed BNY. We chose to continue with our two custodian model as this has proved a successful strategy and is part of our risk mitigation in relation to asset safety.

“Our approach to the selection process was to assess our needs against the capabilities of the major providers in what is an extremely competitive market. We last carried out a tender exercise six years ago and there have been many changes in the custody market in that time. Key differentiators between providers included core and value added services as well as financial standing, pricing, contractual arrangements and the quality of service. The review drew on the expertise of many people within Railpen Investments. Throughout the selection process we have been impressed by ABN AMRO Mellon’s ability to meet our detailed service level agreement that clearly sets out what is expected from the custodian in every aspect of their service delivery.”

The Railways Pension Scheme and other pension schemes run by Railpen have assets totalling some GBP17bn, with equity and fixed income assets of approximately GBP14bn, managed by some 20 external fund managers. ABN AMRO Mellon replaces JPMorgan.

22MAY06: HSBC Securities Services has hired Clare Fraser as head of market strategy for institutional fund services, Europe, reporting to Paul Stillabower, head of business development, Europe, Middle East & Asia.

Fraser previously worked in strategy roles in both Europe and Asia Pacific for the European Commission in Brussels, the chief executive office for NM Rothschild and Macquarie Bank in Australia.

22MAY06: Following the recent reorganisation at Mellon, in which Nadine Chakar assumed overall responsibility for asset servicing outside North America, George McKay has left the bank to pursue other opportunities. Last July McKay was appointed to the new role of executive director, investment manager solutions – international, with specific management responsibility for the transfer agency, fund accounting and fund manager outsourcing businesses outside North America.

18MAY06: Mark Kelley, head of securities and fund services for Citigroup in Europe, Middle East and Africa, has resigned from the bank. Kelley, who has been credited with bringing increased focus and structure to the business, is thought to be moving back to the US, where it is rumoured he may have secured a post with JPMorgan. Kelley’s temporary replacement will be Clive Triance, currently chief operating officer of the unit.

18MAY06: HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt has been selected by Essen-based Karstadt Hypothekenbank as depotbank and custodian for EUR400m in assets.

18MAY06: Clearstream has launched a settlement service for Russian equities. The link will initially include over 50 of the most liquid Russian stocks, including Gazprom, as well as Ministry of Finance bonds. Clearstream customers will be able to settle domestic free of payment transactions through Deutsche Bank’s Moscow operation, Clearstream’s depository in Russia.

18MAY06: Some more colour on the senior reshuffle at The Bank of New York. Tim Keaney’s new global investor services division will combine the custody, fund services, risk services, accounting and outsourcing business units and unify related product development and operational support teams. The new global client management organisation will align client management teams into one global unit, headed by Torry Berntsen, who has also been promoted to senior executive vice president. Ken Lopian, who has been head of Asia Pacific, has been promoted to senior executive vice president and deputy head of global client management, reporting to Berntsen. Lopian will continue to oversee global sales coordination.

17MAY06: Since Tom Perna left The Bank of New York in 2004, no one has directly taken on his broad portfolio of responsibilities for investor services. But this is all about to change as Tim Keaney steps up to become a senior executive vice president and head of global investor services. Keaney, who will remain based in London, will add this new role to his existing duties as head of Europe, and will assume overall responsibility for securities operations. Additionally, Torry Berntsen will head up a new global client executive team which will focus on the bank’s largest existing clients.

17MAY06: Mellon has been named as custodian for four additional university endowments with a combined asset value of more than USD2bn. Mellon will provide custody and associated services such as securities lending and performance measurement and analytics to Carleton College, College of the Holy Cross, The George Washington University and Trinity College.

In addition to these four, Mellon services 11 of the US’s 20 largest university endowments. More than one-third of the top 50 are Mellon clients, representing more than USD130bn in assets under custody.

11MAY06: Northern Trust has been selected by the Stichting Federatief Pensioenfonds, the collective pension fund for small and medium-sized privatised public bodies in The Netherlands, to provide custody, securities lending and performance measurement services to the EUR330m fund.

Dick Snijders, chairman of the board of trustees of SFP, said: “Northern Trust has fully taken on board our priorities and has demonstrated a thorough understanding of our requirements. They approached the tender process consultatively and flexibly which enabled us to reach the decision to award them this mandate promptly.”

11MAY06: Jon Lloyd, a veteran of the clearing and sub-custody business, has joined JPMorgan Worldwide Securities Services as chief administrative officer for international regions, including Europe, Middle East and Africa and Asia Pacific. Lloyd reports to Liz Nolan, regional executive for Worldwide Securities Services in EMEA and APAC.

Lloyd joined from BNP Paribas where he was the head of product for global custody, local custody, derivatives clearing and broker-dealer outsourcing.

11MAY06: Brown Brothers Harriman has appointed L. J. Jia as senior vice president and country manager for China. Mr Jia is responsible for building the profile of the bank’s business in China and for ensuring high quality service delivery to Chinese clients investing internationally.

Before joining BBH, Jia worked for American Express Company in China, serving in several key roles before becoming vice president and country manager in 1994.

09MAY06: Bob Kelly, who was appointed as chairman and CEO of Mellon Financial Corporation earlier this year, has made his first major reshuffle within the asset servicing business.

With immediate effect, vice chairman Jim Palermo will be responsible for all of Mellon’s global asset servicing businesses, continuing to report to Steve Elliott, senior vice chairman. Vice chairman Jack Klinck, who was running much of the asset servicing business, will assume the newly established role of chief operating officer for asset servicing, reporting to Palermo. Klinck’s responsibilities will include all aspects of product management and design, as well as worldwide operations. He will continue to be globally responsible for Eagle Systems and DPM Mellon, the hedge fund administrator.

Additionally, Nadine Chakar, the CEO of ABN AMRO Mellon, will become executive director, Europe/Asia, for Mellon's asset servicing business, as well as president of Mellon Global Securities Services International. She will remain in the Netherlands.

09MAY06: RBC Dexia Investor Services has appointed Keri Smith as director, network management, based in London. She comes from Investors Bank and Trust in Boston where she was director of global network management.

09MAY06: Another reappointment for RBC Dexia Investor Services, which has been handed an expanded mandate by OTG Financial Inc. (previously known as Ontario Teachers Group). RBC Dexia Investor Services will provide custody and fund valuation services on behalf of OTG Financial, which currently manages in excess of CAD500m for more than 16,000 active and retired members of the education community in Ontario and British Columbia.

“We continue to be impressed by the high level of service and overall capabilities of RBC Dexia Investor Services and look forward to building on our existing relationship,” said Bob Dameron, president and chief executive officer of OTG Financial.

09MAY06: CIBC Mellon has entered into a referral arrangement with Donaldson & Co. to launch a commission recapture programme in Canada that will recapture a portion of trading commissions directly back to investment funds through a global broker network.

Donaldson & Co. will establish and maintain the broker network, negotiate all commission recapture rates, collect and reconcile all recaptured commissions, prepare consolidated activity reports and provide a single point of contact for service.

“This programme can help institutional investors potentially reclaim up to 70pct of the trading costs associated with commission recapture directed trades,” said James Slater, CIBC Mellon's senior vice president, capital markets.

08MAY06: Mellon has been appointed as administrator and trustee for the USD4bn ABN AMRO Global Liquidity Fund. The umbrella fund is a money market fund, made up of US dollar, euro and sterling sub-funds. The fund will be serviced through Mellon’s Dublin operation, with global custody provided by ABN AMRO Mellon.

Sander Boelen, director of sales, liquidity management services, at ABN AMRO Asset Management, said, “Mellon’s experience in servicing this type of fund was a key factor in our decision to appoint them. We were also impressed with their ability to tailor their service offering according to our particular requirements.”

08MAY06: International Financial Data Services, the international transfer agency joint venture between State Street and DST Systems, has signed up Neptune Investment Management for its distributor services solution. The solution is a centralised service for nominee and institutional dealing, enquiries and online reporting. Users will be able to download real time reporting of daily deal confirmations, reconciliation reports, valuations and distribution reports via the web-enabled eDistributor service. Neptune consolidated its administration services with IFDS earlier this year.

08MAY06: Société Générale Securities Services has appointed Eric Dickinson as head of sales and product development for SGSS Investor Services in the UK. Dickinson, 53, joins from The Bank of New York, where he was sales manager with responsibility for UK fund administration. He reports to Sébastien Danloy, global head of sales for the Investor Services division.

04MAY06: HSBC Securities Services is to provide a range of investment accounting and regulatory services for Royal & SunAlliance's general insurance assets, comprising 20 funds with a combined value of over GBP5bn. HSBC assumed responsibility for the funds in April.

04MAY06: BNP Paribas Securities Services has appointed Gail Burke as UK chief operating officer, responsible for all UK IT and operations functions. She will be based in London and will relocate from the bank’s Sydney office, where she currently heads BNP Paribas Securities Services’ business in Australia and New Zealand.

Burke will report locally to Tony Solway, head of BNP Paribas Securities Services UK, and globally to Philippe Ricard, head of fund services operations.

03MAY06: Contract renewals do not normally merit a mention on this site but, in view of its significant structural change over the last year, it is worth recording moves by RBC Dexia’s client base. The specialist bank has been re-appointed as Canadian custodian and securities lending provider for the Province of Manitoba. This service extension builds on a 13-year working relationship.

Manitoba certainly seems to have no reservations about the new bank. “After reviewing the strategic options available in the Canadian marketplace, we found RBC Dexia Investor Services to be the strongest provider,” said Scott Wiebe, director of treasury and banking operations for the Province of Manitoba. “They know our business and they have always demonstrated a willingness to go the extra mile. We are confident in our choice of retaining RBC Dexia Investor Services as our provider of Canadian custody and securities lending services.”

02MAY06: ABN AMRO Mellon has appointed Brian Leddy as head of sales. He succeeds Peter Adams, who moved to Mellon Financial to work on the integration of Mellon’s performance and analytical businesses. Leddy will report to John van Verre, chief commercial officer, and will assume direct responsibility for ABN AMRO Mellon's sales and sales support teams.

Leddy’s most recent role was head of London custody operations for Mellon Global Securities Services, a role he took on in 1999.

02MAY06: The Bank of New York has appointed Tony Pedley as managing director, head of European pensions client management. He will be based in London and reports to Robert Darmanin, managing director, head of European custody and pensions.

Pedley joins BNY from SEI Investments (Europe) Ltd where he was operations director responsible for supporting the global business providing solutions to private banks, IFAs and institutional clients.

02MAY06: State Street has appointed Stuart Platt-Ransom to managing director of its operations in Guernsey. State Street has had a presence in Guernsey since 2000 and provides trustee and global investment services, including custody, from its new office in St Peter Port. Platt-Ransom will report to Donald Anderson, managing director of State Street’s trustee business in the UK.

Platt-Ransom has been with State Street for 11 years and has spent time in the bank’s South Africa, Luxembourg, Ireland and UK offices in various operational, business development and relationship management roles. Most recently, he was general manager of State Street’s business in South Africa and its alliance with Nedbank.

28APR06: KAS BANK is to suffer a further withdrawal of custody assets. From mid-2006, a foreign client of its Dutch sub-custody operation will transfer its portfolio of approximately EUR70bn away from the bank. KAS said: “The transfer is in line with the earlier announced policy of KAS BANK to focus more on added value services and less on volume. The transfer will only have a marginal effect on the bank’s result and profitability. As a result, the bank will maintain its earlier expressed financial objectives.”

In February the bank announced that it was losing a Dutch sub-custody client with assets of EUR30bn. KAS has not issued any recent figures for its total assets under custody: at the end of 2004 it reported AUC of EUR250bn.

26APR06: Is the levee finally breaking for US outsourcing? Several recent announcements suggest a more positive attitude from the buyside, and now a very large manager has committed itself to the concept.

Dimensional Fund Advisors, an asset management and mutual fund firm with over USD100bn in assets under management, has appointed Citigroup to provide a broad range of middle-office operational services for its offices around the world. Dimensional is headquartered in Santa Monica, California, with offices in Europe and Asia Pacific.

Citigroup will provide Dimensional with middle-office services including portfolio accounting, trade and cash processing, corporate action processing, broker and custodian relationship management, post-trade compliance and operational data management services.

“Citigroup’s expertise, combined with its global footprint, will allow us to focus on what we do best – manage money for our clients in the US and around the world,” said David Booth, chief executive officer and chief investment officer, Dimensional Fund Advisors.

26APR06: State Street has been appointed to provide custody, accounting, securities lending and compliance services for the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Superannuation Commission. The fund holds CAD1.7bn in assets.

“Throughout our long due diligence process, State Street demonstrated an impressive focus and commitment to meeting its customers’ business and technology needs,” said Dave Barnard, executive director of the STSC. “We are confident that State Street will offer operational efficiencies and first-class customer service as we continue to meet the needs of plan beneficiaries and people of Saskatchewan.”

26APR06: BNP Paribas Securities Services has appointed Colin Shapiro as head of fund accounting, middle office and outsourcing, within the UK global fund services product team. He is based in London and reports both to Stephen Turner, head of UK global fund services product and Alan Dundon, global product head of fund accounting.

Shapiro joins from CSTIM Ltd., where he had a management consultancy role since 2000. Prior to CSTIM Ltd., he worked on various assignments with Barclays Bank and Ernst & Young, which he joined after a thirteen year spell with Prudential Assurance Company.

25APR06: Mellon has been appointed to provide global back office support, including reconciliations, performance analytics and client billing for ClariVest Asset Management LLC, an employee-owned investment manager specialising in US and global equity strategies.

San Diego-based ClariVest, which stands for Clarity in Investing, was recently formed by an investment team that previously managed over USD5bn in assets at its former company.

“We are pleased to partner with Mellon, which has achieved outstanding success in providing sophisticated administrative services to asset management firms such as ClariVest,” said Stacey Nutt, chief executive officer of ClariVest Asset Management. “Our goal is to create an enduring high-quality investment organization that builds on our record of investment success and we look forward to working with Mellon to deliver high-quality back office support to our clients.”

25APR06: CIBC Mellon has been appointed by AXA Rosenberg Group LLC, a global equity manager, to act as its asset services provider for the newly-launched institutional pooled fund products in Canada.

“AXA Rosenberg is a recognized global equity specialist with more than two thirds of our over USD90bn in assets under management in global and multi-country strategies for our worldwide client base. With this responsibility, it was important for us to identify a partner who aligns with our philosophy of combining leading edge technology with a depth of knowledge and experience,” said Kevin Martino, director of marketing, AXA Rosenberg Canada Company. “CIBC Mellon's technology, service and global capabilities as part of The Mellon Group of companies made this appointment our logical step for our efforts in Canada.”

25APR06: The partners of Pictet & Cie have appointed 15 group managing directors, a major development for the Geneva-based private bank. The appointed executives will be able to participate in the capital of the Pictet Group and will share its risk and profits. Amongst the new MDs is Richard Humes, chief architect of Pictet’s astonishingly successful custody business.

21APR06: Despite its well-publicised problems with outsourcing, Schroder Investment Management has always maintained that it is not against the concept per se. Now it has backed up that assertion with action, signing an investment operations outsourcing arrangement with The Bank of New York for Schroder Investment Management North America Inc. The deal will support Schroder’s private client and fund business. Total assets covered by this arrangement, managed by Schroder’s Philadelphia office, exceed USD3bn.

As part of the outsourcing arrangement, The Bank of New York has assumed responsibility for a range of operational functions, including trade support, fail management, data management, investment accounting, third party custodian reconciliation, performance measurement and end-client appraisals on a private label basis. In addition, the bank will develop and host a private-labelled web portal for Schroder.

Mark Hemenetz, Schroder’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, said, “We want to continue to focus on building our business and providing superior investment performance. The bank’s outsourcing solution enables us to focus on our core competency while effectively managing costs.”

21APR06: Northern Trust has added socially responsible investing guidelines to Northern Trust Compliance Analyst, a web-based tool that monitors investment portfolios that are nearing or have breached established limits.

Northern Trust has formed an agreement with Institutional Shareholder Services, a provider of corporate governance and SRI data, to provide research through Compliance Analyst to determine whether institutional and wealth management clients are investing in companies that derive revenue from potentially restricted areas. Users will be able to select from 10 socially responsible investment restrictions.

21APR06: The market really needs yet another study by the European Commission to look at cross-border securities clearing and settlement, so everyone will be relieved to know that another one is now available. The EC’s clearing and settlement fiscal compliance expert group – FISCO - has issued a fact-finding study examining member states' fiscal compliance procedures for clearing and settlement of cross-border securities transactions. The study analyses how these procedures hinder the functioning of capital markets and increase the cost of cross-border settlement, particularly in relation to withholding and transaction taxes. And there’s something more to look forward to: the FISCO group will issue a further report proposing solutions by early 2007.

20APR06: HSBC has appointed Tim Howell as head of global transaction banking, financial institutions, which includes the additional role of global head of HSBC Securities Services. Howell will succeed John Gubert, who is retiring at the end of 2006 after 27 years with the group.

Howell, 45, has worked at HSBC since 1986 in a number of roles including head of group liability and asset management as well as group treasurer. He will join the business on 8 May.

20APR06: Northern Trust has appointed Peter Brookman as head of UK fund accounting and Lynne Hill as Head of UK transfer agency.

Brookman is responsible for Northern Trust’s fund accounting team in London, which started operations in late 2004 and which expanded in 2005 with the acquisition of Baring’s Financial Services Group. Brookman joins from BNP Paribas Fund Services, where he was the Head of UK OEIC and unit trust accounting.

Lynne Hill joins from Ernst & Young, where she was a consultant in the financial services division. Previously, she was head of client services at International Financial Data Services and head of retail operations at Deutsche Asset Management.

19APR06: BNP Paribas Securities Services has launched an integrated outsourcing service for institutional brokers in the UK. The bank will offer brokers both Model A and Model B clearing as part of a back-office and international settlement solution. The service has been designed for the institutional broker and corporate and institutional broker/dealer community.

19APR06: The managing board of KAS BANK is to create the new post of chief financial officer. John van Scheijndel will be appointed CFO and will be responsible for finance, treasury, risk management and legal and compliance.

The supervisory board intends to appoint Hans Kadiks to the managing board of the company with effect from 1 June 2006 for a term of four years. Kadiks will be responsible for client focus. He has spent the greater part of his career, the last ten years of which as statutory managing director, with ING, where he worked both in the Netherlands and abroad, including a spell as general manager banking and insurance in Italy.

18APR06: Erwin Reyes is to join Citigroup as managing director and head of the global transaction services business (GTS) for the Netherlands. He is joining from DCE Consultants, where he was director of the banking and investment group in The Netherlands.

13APR06: Fulcrum Limited, a global fund administrator for the alternative asset management industry, has announced expansion plans that include the broadening of the executive team, the opening of a New York office and expansion of the Canadian office.

Fulcrum, which was founded in Bermuda in 1995, recently opened its first US office in New York. Gary Yannazzo has been appointed chief operating officer of Fulcrum US, where he will lead the firm’s expansion of global client delivery services. Yannazzo previously spent six years as the CFO of Kenmar, a fund of funds manager.

Carsten Jerrild has been appointed as managing director of Fulcrum US, responsible for global marketing and sales. He spent four years as director of sales at Citco Fund Services, (USA) Inc. Megan Corcoran joins the Fulcrum US office as director of business development.

Fulcrum has significantly expanded its facilities in Canada, adding office space for up to 100 staff. John Ruetz and Chris Gehan have been promoted within the company to lead Fulcrum Fund Administration Limited in Kitchener, Ontario. Ruetz will be in charge of all aspects of the Canadian operations including fund accounting, administration, client servicing and reporting. Gehan has been promoted to director of risk and organisational development.

13APR06: The United States Oil Fund, LP, a commodity-based exchange traded fund investing solely in oil, managed by Victoria Bay Asset Management, LLC, has selected Brown Brothers Harriman to act as the fund’s custodian, administrator, and transfer agent. BBH will also provide any necessary fixed income execution through the firm’s fixed income trading desk.

10APR06: As predicted, JPMorgan Chase and The Bank of New York have reached an agreement to exchange business units. BNY will swap its consumer, small-business and middle-market banking businesses in exchange for JPMorgan Chase’s corporate trust business, in addition to a cash payment of USD150m. The BNY businesses are valued at a premium of USD2.3bn; the JPMorgan Chase corporate trust business is valued at a premium of USD2.15bn. JPMorgan Chase may also make a future payment to BNY of up to USD50m tied to certain new account openings at Chase.

The BNY business includes 338 bank branches serving 600,000 households and over 100,000 businesses. The transaction has been approved by both companies’ boards of directors and is subject to regulatory approvals. It is expected to close in late third quarter or the fourth quarter of 2006.

Commenting on the sale of the corporate trust business, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said: “We are proud of the outstanding corporate trust business we’ve built, and we are confident it will thrive as part of The Bank of New York, which will continue to invest in it as a core business.” Dimon confirmed JPMorgan Chase’s commitment to its other processing and securities services businesses: “Our securities processing and cash management franchises are an important and profitable part of our company. These core businesses have meaningful links with our other main business lines and are critical to servicing client needs across the firm. We will continue to make strategic investments to support their technology, product innovation and best-in-class client service.”

10APR06: ABN AMRO Mellon has entered into exclusive negotiations for the EUR115bn custody and securities lending mandate of the DEPFA Group. DEPFA Bank is a provider of financial services to public sector clients worldwide. The company is based in Ireland and operates a network of branches and subsidiaries across Europe as well as in the US, Japan and Hong Kong.

In addition, ABN AMRO Mellon will provide administrative services for the functions undertaken in-house by DEPFA Bank plc, which include reverse repo transactions, custody of cover pool assets for asset-backed bonds, and DEPFA’s own securities lending operation.

Barry Stoneham, managing director operations, DEPFA Bank plc, said: “We began our review for this mandate in mid-2005 and, from the outset, there was intensive competition between the global custody providers. Ultimately we were thoroughly swayed by ABN AMRO Mellon team’s outstanding client focus and service quality. Importantly for us, they also deeply impressed us by their partnership approach, which we found to be distinctive and compelling out of all the custodians. This is a very significant mandate for us to appoint as we anticipate strong growth plans for our business.”

10APR06: Jaron van Dam has been appointed chief commercial officer of Fortis Prime Fund Solutions. He will oversee the global offering of commercial services to the alternative and mutual funds industry, ranging from administration and custody to financing.

07APR06: Avance Advisors A.V., the brokerage entity of the Sinergia Advisors Group, has outsourced its back office and part of its middle office operations to BNP Paribas Securities Services in Madrid. BNP Paribas will manage the execution, settlement and custody of Avance’s investments in international funds, as well as handling the administrative part of its private clients’ investment portfolios, including capital gains, tax information and regulatory reporting.

06APR06: The board of Euroclear has appointed Sir Nigel Wicks, currently deputy chairman, to succeed Chris Tupker as chairman of both Euroclear plc and Euroclear SA/NV as of 1 January 2007. Wicks became deputy chairman in September 2002. Tupker has been chairman since March 2000. Both positions are non-executive.

05APR06: Last October Charles Schwab Investment Management announced the first step in its rationalisation of service providers, handing State Street a USD140bn mandate for custody, fund accounting and securities lending. It has now followed this up with an expansion of its relationship with Brown Brothers Harriman, awarding the bank additional mandates for global custody and securities lending services for the Schwab Funds, one of the largest US mutual fund companies.

“BBH has provided the Schwab Funds with excellent custody and securities lending services and has demonstrated that it continues to be a leading edge provider of these services in our industry. We are happy to be expanding our relationship with them” said George Pereira, chief financial officer of Charles Schwab Investment Management.

05APR06: Northern Trust is to provide global custody to Prince Street Capital Management, an investment management firm specialising in emerging markets. Founded in New York in 2001, Prince Street Capital Management has USD160m in assets under management and invests in emerging markets using long/short strategies for equities as well as derivatives and fixed income, in hedged and un-hedged funds.

04APR06: Fortis has appointed Jonathan Bradshaw to lead its sales drive for the global brokerage, clearing and custody business in France. Based in Paris, Bradshaw will be responsible for implementing strategy and developing electronic connectivity, clearing and custody for equities and derivatives in France.

He was previously at Refco Securities in Paris where he was head of e-business sales and strategy for derivatives. Prior to this, he spent 16 years within the Calyon group.

04APR06: Euroclear Bank is reducing its safekeeping fees for international debt securities, including Eurobonds, by EUR20m per year as of 1 May 2006. Over the past three years, more than EUR50m in tariff reductions have been implemented by Euroclear Bank for custody of international debt securities.

03APR06: HSBC Ireland has opened its new EUR2m centre in Blackthorn House, Sandyford. The new 24,000 square-foot facility will employ up to 170 full-time staff and provide fund administration services for large commercial clients as well as provide training to HSBC staff from throughout Europe.

HSBC Securities Services will use the new Sandyford facility. Configured for 170 work stations, it will have 75pct of space devoted to operations and the remaining 25pct designated for its European training centre. The centre will provide business process training to more than 700 HSBC staff from throughout Europe, including trainees from Milan and London.

31MAR06: HSBC has topped the third annual R & M Fund Accounting and Administration Survey for the second time, with the gap between the top and bottom service providers widening. “The service offered by HSBC and its commitment as a partner to our UK retail funds business has been of such a high standard that we have outsourced further operations functions to them across our business,” was the verdict of one client.

This year’s results have also seen a huge improvement in State Street’s score, putting them into second place. The Bank of New York, who shared fourth place with State Street last year, have also seen a significant improvement.

The biggest declines were noted by Mellon and BNP Paribas with the latter’s score sliding to below 5.0. Both banks saw their biggest decline in core fund accounting and administration.

The survey is aimed at the UK investment management industry and targets the services provided to it from onshore and offshore locations such as Dublin or the Channel Islands. It covers a wide range of issues such as core fund accounting and administration, including transaction processing and query handling; Accounting and Valuation; Communication which looks at accuracy and timeliness of reporting, SWIFT and internet capability; Approach and Flexibility; Quality of Personnel; and Value for Money.

31MAR06: Brown Brothers Harriman has announced the appointment of a new partner, Jeffrey Holland. This brings the total number of BBH general partners to 39.

Holland, 39, joined BBH in 1994 as the assistant head of operations in Boston. In 1998, he moved to Dublin and became responsible for BBH’s investor services businesses in Ireland. He was appointed a managing director of the firm in 2003 and assumed responsibility for business development across Europe. In 2005, he relocated to London as Head of BBH investor services businesses in London and relationship management for all European clients.

28MAR06: AXA Investment Managers has appointed State Street to provide investment servicing for the company’s entire Luxembourg and Dublin-based fund ranges, comprised of nearly 70 sub-funds and almost 300 share classes, with more than EUR20bn under management. The funds include AXA Rosenberg’s Equity Alpha range, AXA World Funds and the AXA IM Fixed Income Investment Strategies range.

State Street will provide AXA IM with offshore investment services including custody and settlement, fund accounting, transfer agency, financial reporting, compliance and domiciliary services. The transfer of assets and related services is scheduled in stages from 31 March to 30 September 2006. Much of the work is currently handled in-house, although PFPC was a provider to AXA Rosenberg.

The appointment of State Street follows its agreement in December 2004 to provide investment operations for USD300bn of AXA IM’s assets under management. These services cover middle office functions including fund accounting, performance measurement services and fund administration. The transfer of AXA IM’s fund administration and investment operations support in France and Germany was completed in December 2004 with the UK transfer completed in March 2005.

Laurent Clamagirand, COO, AXA Investment Managers, said: “This consolidation is a continuation of our stated strategy of focusing on those areas where we have undoubted competitive advantages in order to deliver superior investment solutions to our clients. Our decision to award an expanded brief to State Street is based on its proven expertise and demonstrable track record of service delivery, and a natural choice for us given the success of our investment services outsourcing partnership with them in France, Germany and the UK.

28MAR06: HSBC Securities Services is adding some senior military expertise to its ranks. Jerry Biggs, who was in the British Army for 10 years, has joined as a relationship manager on the London-based insurance companies team, reporting to Dale Grieve, head of relationship management for insurance companies.

Prior to joining HSBC, Biggs was part of the management consultant team at CSTIM, the specialist investment manager advisory group. He was previously a private client manager within the wealth management division HBOS where his duties included the management of a portfolio of 250 high net worth clients.

27MAR06: ABN AMRO Mellon has been appointed as custodian for a EUR13bn pooled assets mandate by F&C Netherlands. Services include global custody, foreign exchange and cash management. ABN AMRO Mellon will also manage F&C Netherlands’ Euroclear auto-lending programme.

Henk Breukink, director and country head of F&C Netherlands, said: “ABN AMRO Mellon has consistently delivered an outstanding performance for F&C Netherlands, and I am delighted to announce this second mandate only three months after our client and fund administration appointment with them. Once again they have demonstrated their ability to anticipate our investment requirements and have delivered a solution that meets our very specific needs as an asset manager servicing premier clients.”

24MAR06: The MAN Group in Germany has appointed BNP Paribas Securities Services in Frankfurt as depository bank for its new contractual trust agreement (CTA), an investment vehicle that helps companies manage their pension liabilities by taking them off the corporate balance sheet. The initial value of the assets making up the CTA is EUR500m. BNP Paribas will provide global custody, accounting and investment compliance monitoring to MAN. The management of the assets will be undertaken by a number of different investment managers.

24MAR06: CIBC Mellon has appointed Brendan Hughes as director, equity securities lending to help grow the company's domestic equities business. Previously, he held senior and executive positions at a number of Canadian investment dealers.

23MAR06: Northern Trust has opened its new office in Amsterdam. The office will primarily represent Northern Trust’s asset servicing and asset management businesses, and will be staffed initially by client relationship management and business development personnel.

Paul Cutts has been named managing director of the new office. He will relocate from London where he has been managing the asset servicing group’s relationship management team for Dutch clients. In addition to Cutts, the new office will be staffed by Wim Van Ooijen, Frans Hofkens, Heico De Boer and Eric Pouwels.

21MAR06: Northern Trust has been selected by Pzena Investment Management, LLC, to provide global custody and related services for an range of Pzena funds, including a new Dublin-domiciled UCITS III fund to be launched in 2006.

In addition to global custody, Northern Trust will provide fund accounting and administration for Pzena's new Dublin fund, Pzena Value Funds plc. Northern Trust is also providing custody, investor support, valuation and reporting for the firm’s US-domiciled limited liability company, Delaware statutory trust and group trust funds.

21MAR06: The FSA, the UK’s regulator, has fined Capita Financial Administrators Limited GBP300,000 for poor anti-fraud controls over client identities and accounts. CFA, a subsidiary of the Capita Group, is a third party administrator of collective investment schemes.

The FSA found that CFA had inadequately considered the risks posed by fraud and had not maintained effective systems and controls to mitigate the risk of fraud. This is the first time the FSA has fined a firm for failures of anti-fraud systems and controls.

The failures in controls contributed to a small number of significant actual and attempted frauds against the firm's clients, which appear to have been facilitated by colluding CFA staff. The initial frauds were not discovered by CFA but instead were brought to the firm's attention by clients.

Philip Robinson, FSA financial crime sector leader, said: “With fraud becoming an increasing menace, firms must fully understand the risks they face and have robust anti-fraud controls in place. The nature of CFA's business, because it holds information on client identity, makes it particularly vulnerable to fraud. Yet the firm failed to adequately consider this risk in the business. Our recent report on fraud governance found that parts of the financial services industry can do more to protect themselves and this case demonstrates that we take a firm's failures seriously.”

In January Capita Financial appointed The Bank of New York as preferred supplier of trustee, depositary and custody services to the underlying funds that Capita administers on behalf of its clients.

20MAR06: Outsourcing of securities trade processing is big business in Germany. The largest player in the market is dwp bank, established in 2003 after the merger of two transaction banks, which won its first major mandate when Dresdner Bank outsourced its retail securities settlement, administration and custody safe-keeping business.

Close behind, however, is ITS, a joint venture between HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt and T-Systems, a Deutsche Telekom subsidiary. ITS has just won the mandate from HypoVereinsbank, part of the UniCredit Group, to process retail securities trades, totalling around 4m p.a. out of 800,000 accounts. ITS processed around 31m transactions in 2005.

Last December Citibank completed the outsourcing of its German retail securities processing to Xchanging, the UK outsourcing firm that bought Deutsche Bank’s transaction processing operation, etb, in 2004.

17MAR06: Mellon has appointed David Horne as senior client relationship executive for its Investment Manager Solutions (IMS) international business. Horne reports to Lawrence Langenhan, head of client relations, Mellon IMS International.

Horne joins from BNP Paribas where he was head of client service delivery, retail operations. Prior to this he worked as client relationship manager in the transfer agency business.

16MAR06: BNP Paribas continues to make progress with continental European pension funds. Fondazione ENASARCO, one of the largest retirement schemes in Italy, has appointed the bank as depositary bank for assets of EUR2.7bn. The range of services offered includes global custody, investment accounting, compliance monitoring, performance measurement and foreign exchange. The transition is planned for completion by April 2006.

ENASARCO is a defined benefit scheme which administers the social security contributions of approximately 300,000 commercial agents and 100,000 businesses in Italy. ENASARCO is a private foundation, managed by its own board of directors and subject to the control of the Italian Minister of Labour and Social Security.

15MAR06: Mellon has combined the services of its Mellon Analytical Solutions business with the product set of Eagle Performance. MAS was formed in September 2005 when Mellon acquired Russell Investment Group's 50 percent share in the Russell/Mellon joint venture. Eagle Performance, developed by Mellon's Eagle Investment Systems subsidiary, provides solutions to institutions through portfolio and mutual fund performance measurement, performance attribution, index data management and portfolio analysis and reporting.

Bruce Feibel has been named global director of MAS and Eagle Performance products, and will be responsible for MAS product management and software development globally. He previously led the Eagle PACE and Eagle Performance businesses.

Joe Kikta, who has assumed the role of director of global client service delivery, was formerly director of strategy management for Mellon's Investment Manager Solutions (IMS) business.

14MAR06: SS&C Technologies, the specialist provider of financial services software and outsourcing solutions, has purchased all the outstanding stock of Cogent Management Inc., for USD12.25m in cash. Cogent, headquartered in New Rochelle, New York, provides hedge fund management administration services, with a particular emphasis on US-based hedge funds. Cogent employs 21 people in its New Rochelle facility and services over 200 hedge funds.

08MAR06: Clearstream is to launch a Central Facility for Funds (CFF). CFF is a quasi-depository for Luxembourg-domiciled investment funds and is designed to offer a more efficient post-trade solution. The launch of the new service is planned for the second half of 2007 and a pilot will begin end of 2006.

CFF will provide DVP facilities between fund distributors and transfer agents, using a single set of settlement and payment instructions for all eligible funds. It will provide post-trade services only, with an architecture open to the various order execution processes. The service is initially offered for investment funds domiciled in Luxembourg, but its business model and operating model could be applied to other funds domiciles.

CFF will be open to transfer agents for Luxembourg domiciled funds as well as domestic and international distributors or large institutional investors. It will not change the direct relationship between distributors and transfer agents and it will not provide direct access for retail customers or independent financial advisors.

08MAR06: Fortis Prime Fund Solutions has acquired Hedge Funds Services (HFS), the largest fund administrator in the British Virgin Islands. At the end of 2005 HFS had approximately EUR2bn in assets under administration in 104 funds from 53 different fund managers, 90pct of which are based in the US. These funds represent a variety of investment strategies, including long/short equities, convertible arbitrage, event-driven and funds-of-funds.

Filip Dierckx, Fortis’s Merchant Banking CEO, said: “Our commitment to grow our presence in niche markets, especially in the Americas, is materializing itself through this acquisition, which will strengthen the position of our fund servicing arm, Prime Fund Solutions, in the hedge funds industry. HFS enjoys an enviable reputation and will enable us to become the number one fund administrator in the BVI, which has become a key financial centre in the Caribbean. We also warmly welcome HFS’s team of 18 highly skilled professionals which will constitute our 3rd Caribbean base for accelerated growth in the hedge fund services industry.”

07MAR06: Northern Trust has been awarded a EUR7.5bn mandate by Stichting Bedrijfstakpensioenfonds voor het Beroepsvervoer over de weg (Vervoer) and its related funds for global custody, compliance monitoring, performance measurement, commission recapture and securities lending. Vervoer is the Dutch travel and transport industry pension scheme.

“We are very pleased with the selection of Northern Trust as master custodian, after a thorough and prudent selection process, which involved our chief investment officer, Patrick Groenendijk, and our consultants, Goris & Partners,” said Hans Van der Klink, the interim managing director of the fund. “We are beginning a full reorientation of the way the assets and liabilities of the fund are managed, and Northern Trust’s appointment is the first major step in this activity.”

06MAR06: Citigroup is to provide clients with direct securities custody and clearing services in Vietnam. With a presence in the country since 1993, Citi is one of the largest foreign banks in Vietnam and has offices in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The bank’s network in Asia Pacific covers 15 countries.

03MAR06: Royal London Asset Management is in negotiations with HSBC about outsourcing investment operations. The consultation period is due to end in May 2006 and, if successful, will result in full outsourcing of the firm’s investment operations to HSBC.

“Outsourcing is in line with current industry developments, and our view is that the outsourcing market has now reached a stage of maturity that is consistent with Royal London’s business requirements. We feel that HSBC are a very good fit both from a cultural perspective and also in terms of our technology and operating model,” said Richard James, head of operations, RLAM.

In 2004 RLAM outsourced all the fund accounting activities for its unit trust range to JPMorgan. The arrangement covered 18 individual Royal London and Scottish Life unit trusts with GBP4.5bn in assets. Under the agreement 16 employees transferred from RLAM in Edinburgh to JPMorgan in Edinburgh Park.

Andrew Carter, CEO RLAM, said: “We successfully outsourced the pricing and administration of our unit trust range in 2004 to JP Morgan. Two years on we feel that we made the right decision. Inevitably this influenced our decision in this matter, although it has been much deliberated. Changes in regulations in the coming years will require a great deal of investment in new technology and the implementation of new processes for all administration teams. We’re a growing company and we have a small back office team; when considering business risk management, the retention and development of talented staff and the financial cost to the business it seemed that outsourcing was the best option in all cases.”

03MAR06: RBC Dexia Investor Services has been selected to provide custody and investment administration services for Ord Minnett’s newly-launched Enhanced Income Fund. Ord Minnett is an Australian asset management, full-service stockbroking and financial planning firm.

“We were impressed by RBC Dexia Investor Services’ capabilities, as well as their reputation for flexibility and excellent client service,” said Walter Lewin, managing director, Ord Minnett Asset Management. “After surveying the marketplace, we decided they were the best partner to help us execute our operating model and maximize the efficiencies of our new fund. We believe RBC Dexia Investor Services has the track record and the capabilities to support not only this fund, but also Ord Minnett’s plans for future funds, which will cater to our clients’ requirements.”

03MAR06: Fortis has appointed Jacques Bofferding as regional managing director of Prime Fund Solutions for the Western Hemisphere. He succeeds Roger Hanson, who has left the firm.

This will be in addition to his current role as deputy CEO of Prime Fund Solutions and member of the management team of Global Securities & Fund Solutions within Fortis Merchant Banking. He is responsible for the activities of Prime Fund Solutions in the US and the Caribbean. He will relocate to New York.

03MAR06: The Dubai International Financial Exchange (DIFX) has accepted KAS BANK N.V. as a general clearing member. In addition, the bank will offer sub-custodian services to users of the exchange. KAS BANK is the first DIFX member based in continental Europe.

The DIFX is the region’s first international financial exchange for equities, bonds, Islamic products, funds, index products and derivatives.

02MAR06: Northern Trust has been selected as trustee and custodian for The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc. Retirement Plan. Northern Trust will provide a range of services, including securities lending, benefit payment, performance and alternative asset reporting, for the USD670m defined benefit pension plan.

In addition, RDA awarded Northern Trust Global Investments a mandate to manage USD165m in pension assets in a passive strategy.

02MAR06: Northern Trust has made three appointments to its EMEA asset servicing business development team.

Richard Hughes has joined as a vice president to focus on investment operations outsourcing. Hughes was previously EMEA managing director for Omgeo.

Rob Messenger becomes a vice president and will focus primarily on the UK fund manager segment. He joins from RBC Dexia where he was director, client solutions for the EMEA region. Prior to RBC, he was at Invesco Asset Management UK.

Aaron Overy joins as a vice president responsible for marketing to cross-border pooling prospects. He joins from CheckFree, a provider of trade processing and corporate actions software solutions, where he held a business development role. Previously, he worked at Thomson Financial for five years, selling front, middle and back office fund accounting and portfolio management software solutions.

Additionally, Paul Chapman, senior vice president, becomes head of consulting and strategic relationships, Europe. In this new role, Chapman has oversight of asset servicing consultant relationships and responsibility for managing and developing strategic partnerships. Since joining Northern Trust in 2003, he has been head of relationship management for the corporation’s global fund services clients.

02MAR06: BNP Paribas Securities Services has completed a major service enhancement for fund administration and investment operations outsourcing clients. The project has created a common trade management service which automates trade management for its clients and counterparties. About 50,000 securities transactions per month are now being processed through a globally accessible STP platform to achieve near 100% same day affirmation rates.

BNP Paribas implemented the Tradeflow middleware system from CheckFree Corporation in conjunction with Omgeo Central Trade Manager to increase the automation levels and efficiency of processing its clients’ trades, from execution right through to settlement.

Commenting on the benefits of the platform, Atholl Forbes, senior relationship manager at Aberdeen Asset Management said: “We are delighted with BNP Paribas’ TradeFlow/Omgeo CTM roll-out, which has immediately improved trade matching rates, whilst reducing Aberdeen’s front-office trade allocation requirements.”

01MAR06: ICAP, the world’s largest interdealer broker, has appointed Roy Zimmerhansl as head of electronic securities lending. He will be based in London and reports to Garry Jones, CEO of ICAP electronic broking in Europe.

Zimmerhansl will lead ICAP’s entry in electronic securities lending brokerage, and will be responsible for the launch of a new electronic trading platform covering both the fixed income and equity markets. Zimmerhansl was previously global head of securities lending sales and marketing at Deutsche Bank, having previously been managing director and head of global collateral management at Rabobank.

01MAR06: PKB Privatbank AG, a Swiss-based company providing portfolio management and investment advisory services, has appointed RBC Dexia Investor Services for the legal set-up, fund administration, compliance, transfer agency and custodian services for its new fund of hedge funds. The new fund is to be distributed in Switzerland and Luxembourg.

This deal builds on the longstanding relationship between RBC Dexia Investor Services and PKB Privatbank (previously as Dexia Fund Services and First European Transfer Agent) for fund administration, transfer agency, compliance, custodian and securities lending services of their Planetarium Fund, an umbrella fund with 12 sub-funds totalling EUR467m in total net assets.

28FEB06: Mellon Global Securities Services has been named master custodian for the USD1.8bn Florida Retirement System Public Employees Optional Retirement Program (FRS Investment Plan), administered by the State Board of Administration (SBA) of Florida. Mellon will provide global custody, performance measurement and analytics.

The FRS Investment Plan is a participant-directed programme selected by employees in lieu of participation in the FRS Pension Plan. SBA is the fourth largest public retirement system in the US: last year it awarded its $113bn custody mandate to Mellon, replacing State Street.

28FEB06: Citigroup claims to have become the first lending agent to complete a securities lending transaction in Taiwan. No further details were released.

28FEB06: Benjie Fraser has joined JPMorgan Worldwide Securities Services as senior vice president and head of business development for European pension funds, a new position. Fraser joins from The Bank of New York, where he was head of European pensions. He has over 16 years of experience in the pensions industry, including successful spells at State Street and Mellon.

Last October Sue Curtis, who had spent 15 years with the Chase/JPMorgan custody business, moved from WSS to a new post with JPMorgan Asset Management. WSS provides custody services to nearly 40pct of UK pension funds.

27FEB06: Serhiy Berezhny has joined Deutsche Bank as head of trust & securities services in Russia, with primary responsibility for domestic custody services, a unit which provides custody and fund administration services to domestic and international institutional investors. He reports to Andrew Carter, head of product and client management for domestic custody services in Eastern and South Eastern Europe. Berezhny joins from ING Bank (Eurasia) ZAO.

27FEB06: CajaMadrid has signed up for Euroclear Bank’s triparty collateral management services. Euroclear Bank provides collateral management services to support repurchase agreements, securities loans, secured loan facilities, derivatives transactions and other secured exposures.

27FEB06: Citigroup has launched a securities exchange clearing service in Hong Kong. Citi will provide back office securities clearing services and will act as account operator for exchange members. This includes handling certain operational activities relating to trades executed on the Hong Kong stock exchange and securities clearing and settlement. Citigroup has already signed up one client and further clients are expected to be added in the coming year.

Citigroup claims to be the first custodian bank to act as a settlement agent in Hong Kong for an external party after changes in legislation in November 2004 that allowed exchange members to outsource clearing and settlement activities.

27FEB06: KAS BANK is to use the electronic proxy services of ADP Investor Communication Services for worldwide markets from March 2006. The service aims to eliminate paper from the proxy voting process from notification through to vote execution. The platform supports multi-language operations and includes independent sources of proxy voting research and advice from third party providers. In 2005, ADP ICS processed ballots representing approximately 829bn shares across 69 markets.

27FEB06: SEB Group has joined FX Connect, State Street’s electronic foreign exchange trading system. FX Connect is a buy-side, multi-bank FX trading platform. Last year, FX Connect surpassed $45bn in daily trading volume. SEB Group is a North European financial group for corporate customers, institutions and private individuals with ten home markets in the Nordic and Baltic countries, Germany, Poland and the Ukraine.

22FEB06: Rick Waddell has been elected to the position of president and chief operating officer of Northern Trust Corporation, reporting to Bill Osborn, chairman and chief executive officer. Waddell also joins the board of directors. He will retain his current responsibilities as president, corporate and institutional services, which he has held since early 2003.

Effective immediately, the heads of Northern Trust's other principal operating businesses - Personal Financial Services, Northern Trust Global Investments, and World Wide Operations and Technology - will also report to Waddell.

22FEB06: BNP Paribas Securities Services has appointed Kay Dennis as a global relationship manager within the institutional investor coverage team. She is based in London and reports to Scott Dickinson, senior global relationship manager for institutional investor clients.

Dennis has over 25 years’ experience in the securities industry. She joins from Phoenix Administration Services Ltd, a UK-based third party administrator, where she was responsible for business development and client relations. Prior to that, she was director of global operations for G.T. Management UK Ltd, an international investment company which is now part of INVESCO.

22FEB06: DWS Investment, Germany's largest retail investment fund management group, has chosen Vestima+, Clearstream's automated investment funds order routing service. DWS, which is part of the Deutsche Bank group, has EUR150bn in funds under management and a domestic market share of 24pct.

22FEB06: Brown Brothers Harriman has released its data manager module for Infomediary, BBH’s integrated communications outsourcing solution. The new module allows Infomediary clients enhanced functionality to directly customise, view and control their data.

Users will have a single, web-based application to view and control time-sensitive information. Data components will include reference (including market, security and currency identifiers), translation and rules (standing settlement instructions) management tools. Each component and associated interface is built based on client-defined requirements and is integrated with the full suite of Infomediary products.

21FEB06: Stephen Richardson, head of The Bank of New York’s European investor services group, has left the bank. Richardson, who was formerly head of European operations, was appointed to his new position following a major reshuffle in October last year. He will be replaced by Andy Bell, who is currently global head of outsourcing. Bell will relocate to London and will retain his outsourcing brief. In a separate move, Clive Gande will expand his role to look after all European alliances, which include ING, Natexis, BHF BANK and Nordea.

20FEB06: KAS BANK has announced that a global custodian client for its Dutch sub-custody services has decided to consolidate its sub-custody portfolio with a different provider. Assets withdrawn total EUR30bn, although KAS says that “the effect on the 2006 revenues and profitability will be marginal, because the service offering to this client concentrated on basic services”.

17FEB06: Unknown to many, one suspects, is the fact that The Bank of New York has been continuously present in Beirut since 1964, an astonishing record. Now it has appointed Bana Akkad Azhari as the representative for its Beirut office. Ms. Azhari will have responsibility for all of the bank's business activities in Lebanon and Cyprus and will report to William Williams, managing director, Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Africa division.

Azhari joins the company after over nine years with Citigroup in Beirut where she was a resident vice president. She holds a Masters of Money and Banking degree from the American University of Beirut.

16FEB06: Cazenove Capital Management is now live with JPMorgan's global custody, fund administration and fiduciary services. Cazenove Capital Management selected JPMorgan in 2004 as its main securities services provider for GBP4bn of UK and Irish funds.

Mike Neilson, chief operating officer at CCM, said: “We are pleased with the way in which this conversion was managed. JPMorgan's team of dedicated professionals has successfully migrated our funds on to their platform on time and on budget. We have achieved our goal of consolidating our outsourcing arrangements into a more efficient solution.”

The next phase will be the custody transition of the remaining GBB6bn of private and institutional client assets managed by CCM, which is planned for completion during 2006.

16FEB06: State Street’s dominance in the US public plan market has been threatened recently as Mellon moves on to its territory, notably winning the massive $113bn Florida State Board mandate last year, so it will be relieved to have been reappointed by the California Public Employees' Retirement System to provide investment services for its pension fund, which has more than $200bn in assets. State Street has provided investment services to CalPERS for more than 13 years, winning the original mandate from Boston Company, now part of the Mellon group.

16FEB06: HSBC Securities Services has hired Lilia Tira as product manager, custody services. Tira will focus on the development of HSS' global custody product and service capabilities in addition to enhancing the external profile of HSS’ global custody business in the industry.

Tira previously worked with JP Morgan and Euroclear in Paris, Brussels and London, and most recently with LCH Clearnet. Her previous roles have included responsibilities for product development, product analysis, client development programmes and audit.

HSS has also hired Stuart Finken as clearing services product manager, joining its custody services group in London. Finken will lead the final stages of development, implementation, and subsequently run the day-to-day operations, of HSS’ new clearing product.

Finken joins from Commerzbank Investment Bank where he ran the London back-office operations group.

15FEB06: HSBC Securities Services is to provide a range of investment accounting services for Jupiter’s unit trust fund range. This comprises 30 trusts with a combined value of GBP10bn. Following the successful tender, HSBC will assume responsibility for the trusts on a phased basis from April.

Jonathan Carey, joint group chief executive of Jupiter International Group PLC, said: “Our relationship with HSBC Securities Services started with their servicing of our institutional funds in 2002 following HSBC’s acquisition of the Bank of Bermuda, which for many years had been involved in the administration of our offshore fund range. We look forward to deepening our relationship still further following our rationalisation of service providers and the consequent appointment of HSBC Securities Services as administrator to our unit trust range.”

15FEB06: It is a long slow road for Northern Trust in its quest to become a major player in UK fund administration, so it will be relieved to have won another mandate, albeit a fairly small one. The UK’s Charities Aid Foundation has appointed Northern to provide custody, fund administration and transfer agency services to two of its common investment funds with about GBP430m in charity assets.

Tracey Reddings, CAF executive director, charity financial services, said: “Northern Trust has a flexible, consultative approach to addressing our requirements. The fact that it can provide us with custody, fund accounting and transfer agency all under one roof is highly attractive. We are very impressed by the way they project-managed the transfer, and the additional support they gave us in certain, more complex areas of the transition. The whole thing went very smoothly.”

15FEB06: BISYS has been selected by four fund advisory firms to provide mutual fund support through their domestic and offshore fund services operations.

Giant 5 Funds, a Colorado-based investment company, chose BISYS to partner in the start-up of their world allocation fund of funds, Giant 5 Total Investment System and Giant 4 Total Investment System. BISYS will provide fund accounting, transfer agency and administrative services.

PARADIGM Global Advisors LLC is employing BISYS' fund support for their newly launched SEC-registered fund of hedge funds portfolio, PARADIGM Multi Strategy Fund I LLC. PARADIGM will use the BISYS legal and compliance infrastructure and fund administration services.

Prusik Investment Management LLP chose BISYS (Ireland) as fund accountant and transfer agent to support the launch of Prusik Asia Fund plc, a long-only, Dublin-domiciled UCITS.

Wayne Hummer Asset Management Company, headquartered in Chicago, is using BISYS to support the PathMaster Domestic Equity Fund. Under the terms of the contract, BISYS will deliver a range of services, including fund accounting, transfer agency, distribution and CCO support.

14FEB06: Do you run a tiny pension fund in the UK and sometimes feel that the big providers are completely uninterested in your business? Help is at hand, with further news that State Street is happily operating in this hinterland of global custody.

State Street will provide custody and compliance monitoring services for GBP230m in assets for The Hoover (1987) Pension Scheme. WM Performance Services will continue to provide performance measurement services to the scheme. Aon Consulting assisted the scheme with its search.

The Milk Pension Fund has awarded State Street a new custody mandate for its GBP280m in assets. Again, Aon Consulting assisted the fund with its search.

State Street will act as custodian for a new GBP80m mandate from the Dumfries & Galloway Council Pension Fund. The fund previously had a tri-party relationship with State Street through a custody relationship with Deutsche Asset Management. Hymans Robertson advised the fund in its search.

The Massey Ferguson Works Pension Trust Limited has appointed State Street as custodian for a new GBP55m mandate. The fund also previously had a tri-party relationship with State Street through a custody relationship with Deutsche Asset Management.

State Street has also expanded its global relationship with Procter & Gamble and will now provide custody, fund accounting, plan accounting and performance measurement to the Procter & Gamble Ireland Pension Plan.

14FEB06: JPMorgan Worldwide Securities Services has agreed to acquire the middle and back office operations of Paloma Partners Management Company. Paloma is part of a privately-owned investment fund management group, based in Greenwich, CT. In addition, the parties have agreed to enter into a multi-year contract for JPMorgan to provide daily operational services to Paloma.

The acquisition will complement the bank’s existing hedge fund administration unit, JPMorgan Tranaut, which was acquired in 2004. WSS has created a new unit, Alternative Investment Services, which incorporates hedge fund services, private equity fund services, global derivatives services and leveraged loan services.

“Paloma's experienced personnel and innovative technical platform are very attractive to JPMorgan,” said Liz Nolan, global head of alternative investment services for WSS. “This acquisition allows us to immediately offer our hedge fund clients a high quality option – built on top of a hedge fund-specific platform – for outsourcing their daily operations.”

14FEB06: ABN AMRO Mellon has announced changes to two of its board-level positions. John van Verre has been appointed chief commercial officer of ABN AMRO Mellon. He was formerly chief financial officer of the company, a position he had held since the company’s formal launch in January 2003. Pim Nederpel, formerly executive director of Euronext Amsterdam, has been appointed CFO.

As CCO van Verre is responsible for the commercial growth of the business, including future developments in existing markets and expansion into new territories. In addition, he oversees client satisfaction and retention, with René Wiegel and Nigel Taylorson, the heads of relationship management, reporting directly to him.

13FEB06: Following the departure of Volker Pothoff, Deutsche Börse’s director of banking and custody services, Clearstream has promoted three department heads in charge of customer relations. They will report directly to Clearstream’s CEO, Jeffrey Tessler.

Thomas Zeeb has been appointed head of customer relations covering Europe, the United Kingdom and the USA. Zeeb joined Clearstream in 2004 from Bank of New York in London.

Stefan Lepp has been appointed head of customer relations covering origination (sales). Prior to joining Clearstream in 2004, Lepp was head of marketing at Dresdner Bank.

Philippe Metoudi has been appointed department head for Asia and the Middle East. Metoudi has headed Clearstream’s operations in Asia since the opening of the Hong Kong office in 1990.

09FEB06: State Street has been appointed by Hartford Life Limited, the UK subsidiary of The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc., to provide daily unit pricing and fund accounting for Hartford Gold, its unit-linked investment bond launched last year in the UK. The services will be provided from State Street’s operations in Edinburgh.

The Hartford is one of the largest financial services and insurance companies in the US, with total assets of $285.6bn.

08FEB06: Mellon is to administer the back office for Evercore Asset Management, an institutional investment management firm which takes a long-term approach to investing in small- and mid-cap value equities. Mellon will provide transaction processing, custodian reconciliation, performance measurement and analytics, and investor reporting. EAM was formed recently in partnership with Evercore Partners, an advisory and investing boutique.

“All of us at EAM are committed to building a lasting franchise that will benefit our clients over the long term, and Mellon will help us achieve this objective by providing best-in-class infrastructure support,” said Margot Nones, chief operating officer of EAM. “We look forward to working with Mellon to deliver high-quality back-office services to our clients.”

08FEB06: The Bank of New York has appointed Ben Kajtazi as senior relationship manager for its UK pension fund clients. Kajtazi, whose primary focus is to build relationships with new and existing clients in the UK, will report to Robert Darmanin, head of European custody and pensions.

He joins from KAS BANK where he was involved in the company’s expansion into global custody service for UK pension funds. He has over 18 years experience in the investment industry with companies including Brown Brothers Harriman, HSBC Asset Management and State Street.

07FEB06: ABN AMRO Mellon has been appointed as depositary and global custodian to the Mackintosh Investment Funds ICVC, a new OEIC umbrella fund. The fund is marketed and managed by Glasgow Investment Managers Ltd. The Authorised Corporate Director is Sinclair Henderson (ACD Services Ltd). Glasgow Investment Managers Ltd is a Glasgow-based asset manager with a portfolio of UK investment trusts.

Commenting on the appointment, Mike Balfour, chief executive of Glasgow Investment Managers, said: “We valued the support of ABN AMRO Mellon’s trustee and depositary team, and their in-depth understanding of the regulatory environment in which we are launching this innovative fund, and we look forward to a growing relationship with ABN AMRO Mellon.”

This is the inaugural mandate for ABN AMRO Mellon’s UK trustee & depositary services, headed by John Morris, who joined in May 2004.

07FEB06: Citigroup has been appointed by Pacific Income Advisers (PIA) to be the service provider for the investment advisory firm’s retail separately managed accounts (SMA) business. Initially, this mandate involves 7,000 retail accounts with USD2.5bn assets under management.

Tim Tarpening, executive vice president of PIA, said: “When we decided to automate our SMA operations, we sought an operations service provider that had the experience and resources to deliver a solution customised to our specific needs and management style. For the first time, Citigroup is providing a level of automated processing in fixed income management previously unavailable in the SMA marketplace.”

06FEB06: Carl Anderson has joined Mellon in the UK as head of transaction processing for its transfer agency business. Anderson reports to Ray Pepper, managing director for Mellon’s transfer agency business.

Anderson will have responsibility for anti-money laundering, dealing, DC pensions, investor registration and operations. He joins from The Bank of New York where he was based at their Edinburgh offices as head of retail operations. Prior to BNY, he held various positions with Deutsche Bank, Citibank and Lloyds.

06FEB06: Kate Parker has been hired by HSBC Securities Services as business development manager for its institutional fund services’ European pensions segment. Before joining HSBC, she was lead pensions sales person in the UK at KAS BANK. Prior to that, she worked for four years in a similar role with Deutsche Bank and two years with JPMorgan.

03FEB06: Mellon’s investment manager solutions group is to administer the back-office for Provident Investment Counsel, Inc.'s institutional clients, which have USD5bn under management at Provident. This award expands the scope of the services that Mellon will provide to Provident. Mellon has been a custodian for Provident's commingled funds since 1997.

The outsourcing of the institutional back office for Provident will include trade processing, securities clearing and settlement, valuation, client billing, client statements, cash management support services, and performance and analytics measurement. Mellon will support Provident's institutional business from its Los Angeles service centre.

“Mellon's back-office expertise will enable Provident to continue to focus its full attention and resources on the investment needs of our institutional clients,” said Aaron Eubanks, managing director, chief operations officer and chief compliance officer of Provident Investment Counsel, Inc. “By using Mellon's scaleable technology platform for our back-office needs, we expect to grow our business in a cost-efficient manner.”

03FEB06: Susan Ebenston has joined JPMorgan’s worldwide securities services group as the product executive for all fund servicing, fiduciary and outsourcing products outside the US. Ebenston joins from Ruby Business Management - a consultancy firm which she co-owned –where she worked with a variety of financial institutions to leverage their existing business and operational models. Ebenston is probably best known for her time as chief operating officer at Scottish Widows Investment Partnership, and has also held a number of senior positions in the custody industry, including director of business strategy at State Street in the UK.

02FEB06: Following the resignation of Arti Sharma, the sales chief who is going to work for industry consultants Thomas Murray, CIBC Mellon is shaking up its sales team.

Barbara Barrow moves to the new role of vice president, business development, reporting to David Linds, senior vice-president, business development and client relationship management.

Parker Henderson becomes executive director, business development, for global securities services in western Canada. Gordon Kosokowsky moves to the role of executive director, business development, for the investment fund segment, with responsibility for developing the company's investment fund and back office outsourcing practice.

02FEB06: San Diego County Employees Retirement Association (SDCERA) has appointed Mellon as sole provider of custody and related services, including, performance analytics, securities lending and global cash management, for USD6.9bn of assets. Mellon also will provide cash sweep and foreign exchange services.

“Mellon's breadth of offerings and reputation for client service are especially attractive to us,” said Mark Mimnaugh, chief operating officer of the SDCERA. “The ability to provide differentiating services such as performance analytics is becoming increasingly important in the marketplace.”

SDCERA provides retirement benefits for approximately 33,000 eligible employees, former employees who are vested and retirees of the County of San Diego.

01FEB06: Three years ago a French bank paid a very full price for a UK fund administration business – BNP Paribas and Cogent. Today, another French bank - Société Générale – is paying a similarly hefty price (EUR548m) to acquire 2S Banca S.p.A., the securities services business of UniCredit Group. The second largest custodian in Italy, with more than EUR455bn in assets under custody and nearly EUR80bn in funds under administration, 2S Banca offers custody, clearing & settlement, depositary bank, fund administration and transfer agency for clients in Italy, Luxembourg and Dublin.

SG will retain UniCredit’s current organisation and teams, with a total of 435 staff, of which 376 are based in Italy, transferring to SG’s securities services business.

Alain Closier, global head of SGSS, said: “Two years ago, with the creation of a dedicated securities services business line, Société Générale asserted its commitment to this industry. Today by acquiring UniCredit’s securities services business, SGSS is becoming a leading global custodian worldwide. We will serve both UniCredit and Pioneer, its asset management arm, in four key European locations, with a strong growth potential.”

Following regulatory approval of the transaction, SGSS will rank as the third largest global custodian in Europe with nearly EUR2trn in assets under custody and close to EUR380bn of funds under administration.

31JAN06: The board of directors of Mellon Financial Corporation have appointed Robert P. Kelly as chairman, president and chief executive officer, succeeding current chairman and CEO Martin G. McGuinn. Kelly, currently chief financial officer and senior executive vice president of Wachovia Corporation, will join Mellon on February 13, 2006. He will relocate to Pittsburgh.

The Board began an internal and external search process last September in connection with the succession of McGuinn, who is 63 and will retire simultaneously with Kelly’s arrival. “Bob Kelly has a proven track record and will hit the ground running,” McGuinn said. “As such, there is no need for a transition process.”

In a poll of analysts by Institutional Investor magazine, Kelly was voted the best large cap bank CFO in America in both 2004 and 2005.

31JAN06: Mellon has appointed Paul North as head of business development for its investment manager solutions’ international business. North reports to George McKay, executive director, Mellon IMS International.

As head of business development North will have responsibility for sales, marketing, client relationship management and product development. He joins from JPMorgan worldwide securities services where he worked in the investment operations business.

31JAN06: State Street has joined forces with Algorithmics, a specialist in enterprise risk management solutions, to develop a new set of online risk management, decision-making and investment monitoring tools. These tools will be available to State Street’s clients through my.statestreet.com, the company’s web-based platform for client data and applications.

Users can choose any level of detail to view their investment information and holdings across country, asset class, currency sector, industry, duration and market cap. State Street’s risk analytics solution also offers multiple methodologies for calculating value-at-risk, which allows clients to identify and minimise sources of potential loss in investment portfolios.

“In light of many pension schemes’ increased emphasis on managing risk and measuring investment effectiveness, State Street’s technology is a welcome addition to our program,” said Peter Hadasch, member of the board of directors for Nestlé Pensionskasse in Germany, a current user of State Street’s enhanced risk reporting solution. “We now enjoy the ability to access our investment information in multiple views and forecast outcomes for varying levels of risk.”

30JAN06: JPMorgan Worldwide Securities Services has appointed Christopher Kunkle to its securities lending management team for the Western Hemisphere region. He will head a team focused on client management and sales to the global mutual fund segment. Based in New York, Kunkle will report to Gene Picone, senior vice president and head of JPMorgan securities lending and execution products for the Western Hemisphere region.

Kunkle has spent the past 13 years in global securities lending. Prior to joining JPMorgan, he was at Mellon Bank where he was responsible for product management and development within global securities lending and was a member of the senior management team.

30JAN06: KAS BANK has appointed Cees Bezuijen as sales manager in its institutional investors Europe team. He will primarily focus on sales/acquisition of Dutch pension funds and insurance companies, reporting to Mark van Weezenbeek, associate director - institutional investors Europe. Bezuijen has been working at the bank since 1998, most recently in the position of head of securities lending.

Additionally, KAS BANK has appointed Arno Vroom as associate director - financial intermediaries, with responsibility for the Benelux markets. Vroom will be responsible for sales/acquisition, cross-selling and relationship management for financial institutions in the Benelux area. Vroom will succeed Bart Mantje, who has been appointed head of business support & development at KAS BANK. He will report to Ryanne Cox, director - financial intermediaries. Vroom has been working at the bank since 2000, most recently in the position of senior relationship manager for financial intermediaries.

30JAN06: DPM Mellon, the hedge fund administration subsidiary of Mellon, has announced the launch of its European-based hedge fund servicing operation. A dedicated DPM Mellon team will join Mellon's investment manager solutions group in Dublin, which has been offering fund administration services since 1995.

Kevin Corcoran will be head of hedge fund administration in Dublin. He will be responsible for overseeing and managing hedge fund capabilities in Dublin, having previously led DPM Mellon's hedge fund operations in Somerset, New Jersey. Corcoran will report to John Maguire, head of Mellon’s fund administration operations in Dublin.

Elsa Heitzig joins the team as product specialist for hedge funds in Europe. Based in London, Heitzig will be responsible for new business development for DPM Mellon in the European markets and joins from Bank of Montreal's institutional sales team in London.

30JAN06: The Bank of New York has been appointed by the Employees Provident Fund of Malaysia to provide master custody services. The EPF is Malaysia’s national savings scheme, providing basic financial security for retirement.

30JAN06: The Bank of New York has been selected by Leeds Building Society as global custodian for USD4bn of assets, and as its issuing and paying agent.

Paul Riley, head of group treasury, Leeds Building Society, said: "We appointed The Bank of New York as it demonstrated a clear understanding of the sector we operate in. The team showed total commitment to our current and future needs since we began talks and they stood head and shoulders above their competition in showing that they have the experience to meet the complex nature of our business."

30JAN06: Thomas Murray, the specialist custody rating, risk management and research firm, has confirmed the public French domestic custody rating of IXIS Investor Services, a company of the CACEIS Group. “IXIS Investor Services continues to demonstrate a very strong French domestic custody offering and has been confirmed as AA overall by Thomas Murray,” a statement said. “The joint venture with the investor services activities of Crédit Agricole S.A. which formed CACEIS in August 2005, requires the rating outlook to be on watch.”

30JAN06: Often cited as the last major UK asset manager to offer custody to clients, Schroder Investment Management has decided to call it a day. “We have recently completed a review of our support services in London in order to ensure that our resources are appropriately focused on the current and future needs of our clients,” a statement said. “As part of this review, we have concluded that it is no longer appropriate for Schroders to provide custody services to its UK-based institutional clients with effect from 30 September 2006.”

Following a review by Thomas Murray Investor Services, Schroders will recommend that the service offering from JPMorgan is “the most compelling. The tariffs offered are considered as highly competitive and their custody service offering as comprehensive. Naturally, it will be up to our clients to appoint their preferred custodian.”

30JAN06: Brian Wilkinson, head of HSBC Securities Services in Dublin, has decided to leave at the end of March to pursue a career as a professional independent director within the fund industry. His successor will be announced shortly. Wilkinson has been involved in the fund administration industry for over 30 years and during that time he has been a board member on over 50 funds. During his four and a half year tenure at HSBC he was responsible for growing the HSBC Securities Services business into one of the largest hedge fund service providers in Dublin.

30JAN06: Mellon has topped the second R&M Survey of Dublin trustee banks in succession to Citigroup, last year’s leader. State Street comes into second place after not receiving enough responses last year to qualify for entry. This year the minimum number of responses was set at five and seven banks qualified for inclusion.

The number of responses received increased by nearly 50% to 59. The total value of assets covered in the survey was in excess of EUR156bn, although many respondents didn’t reveal the size of assets they had with their trustee.

	Trustee (last year's position)	2005	2004	Change
1	Mellon (2)	6.05	5.91	0.14
2	State Street (-)	5.62	-	-
3	Citigroup (1)	5.60	6.49	-0.89
4	AIB/BNY (6)	5.43	4.93	0.50
5	Northern Trust (3)	5.37	5.71	-0.34
6	HSBC (5)	5.12	5.46	-0.34
7	J P Morgan (4)	5.05	5.60	-0.55

Richard Hogsflesh, CEO R&M Surveys, said: “This year the overall average score declined. Four of the seven participating banks followed this trend and registered lower scores. There may be several explanations for this, not the least of which is the strains of expansion in the Dublin market putting pressure on continuity and availability of staff. Also the bigger a trustee/custodian becomes, with a growing number of clients, the more of a challenge it is to maintain the quality of customer relations.”

30JAN06: Charlie Cassidy, who ran the European investor services business for State Street in the early nineties, has joined Cambridge Associates as the director of operational due diligence in its marketable alternative assets (hedge funds) group. Cambridge Associates is a global investment consulting and research firm based in Massachusetts.

30JAN06: Citigroup has appointed Ellen Alemany as chief executive officer of global transaction services, replacing Frank Bisignano, who recently left the bank to join JPMorgan Chase.

Alemany, who moves from running the bank’s global consumer group's commercial business unit, reports to Robert Druskin, president and chief executive officer of Citigroup corporate and investment banking. She will become a member of the CIB planning group, and will remain a member of the Citigroup operating committee and the Citigroup management committee.

30JAN06: The only surprise about Volker Potthoff’s departure from Deutsche Börse, where he was managing director responsible for banking & custody services, is that it has taken so long. Ever since Jeff Tessler was appointed as chief executive of Clearstream in October 2004, Pothoff’s position has looked untenable. He will resign from Deutsche Börse Group with effect from 30 June 2006, working as “a consultant” until that date. Potthoff was a member of the group executive management at Clearstream International, as well as a member of the group executive management and the executive management at the Clearstream Banking Luxembourg and Clearstream Banking Frankfurt subsidiaries. Potthoff is leaving the company by mutual consent in order to pursue new activities.

20JAN06: HSBC Securities Services has been awarded the custody mandate for GBP21bn in Eurobonds held by Legal & General. L&G had been holding these assets directly with the local agent and made a strategic decision to consolidate its fixed income provision with HSBC, its major global custodian for fixed income securities and UK equities.

Keith Bewsey, director of operations for L&G Investment Management said: “We had been looking at consolidating this activity to a professional custodian for some time, in order to take advantage of economies of scale in pricing and overhead costs. HSBC Securities Services was a natural choice, as not only has it demonstrated expertise in holding L&G’s gilts and UK equities for many years, but is also able to offer scale and complex infrastructure support for Eurobonds that really makes a difference to our bottom line.”

20JAN06: The Bank of New York has been selected by Capita Financial Group, which provides authorised corporate director and unit trust manager solutions in the UK, as preferred supplier of trustee, depositary and custody services to the underlying funds that Capita administers on behalf of its clients.

The scope of the agreement involves approximately GBP12bn of assets which represents about 85 pct of Capita Financial’s current assets under administration. BNY will also provide technology and servicing infrastructure.

Keith Marsden, chief executive officer of Capita Financial Group, said: “The Bank of New York consistently demonstrated that it understands the complexity of the servicing requirements of our clients and that the safety of our funds’ assets is of paramount importance. With The Bank of New York, I believe we have identified a strategic partner who can support the growth of our business, allowing us to fully focus on core competencies including business-processing standardisation and any resulting cost efficiencies.”

18JAN06: ABN AMRO Mellon has won the EUR850m global custody mandate for Onderlinge Levensverzekering-Maatschappij ‘s-Gravenhage U.A., one of the Netherlands’ oldest mutual life insurance companies.

Pieter Loyson, chief executive officer of Onderlinge, said: “There was intensive competition from the principal local market players for our mandate but, after careful review and consideration of all our business requirements, I was absolutely clear that the winner could only be ABN AMRO Mellon.”

17JAN06: Those of us of a certain age will remember the legendary First Chicago CD Clearing Centre, a UK clearing house and depository for certificates of deposit which, through a series of mergers, eventually ended up in the hands of JPMorgan Chase. Now JPMC is selling it – the Depository and Clearing Centre - to Deutsche Bank, subject to regulatory approval.

The DCC is a provider of issuing and paying agency, clearing, settlement and custody services for CDs in US dollars, euro and other currencies in the physical market, in addition to Sterling in CREST. The DCC holds total assets of more than USD180bn and handles paper worth USD30bn daily.

13JAN06: The Federated City Employees' Retirement System of San Jose, California, has selected Northern Trust to provide global custody, securities lending, performance measurement and risk management services for the USD1.6bn retirement plan. Plan assets have already moved.

“We selected Northern Trust because of its long-term commitment to asset servicing, its flexible, user-friendly technology platform and the strong combination of analytics and performance reporting that we were looking for,” said Donna Busse, the System’s investment officer. “We believe that Northern's high standards of client service and technology development will help us to better serve the needs or our retirement plan members now and in the future.”

13JAN06: State Street has established a new technology centre in China with the acquisition of UniverseSoft Technology Company in Hangzhou, China. The new software development technology centre, State Street Technology (Zhejiang), Co. Ltd., will house approximately 170 State Street employees working on information technology application development and maintenance.

State Street announced the opening of its Beijing office last year. In 2002, the bank established its partnership with Zhejiang University to jointly develop technology solutions for the financial services industry.

13JAN06: BISYS has named Gavan McGuire vice president of business development for its hedge fund business, based in its London office. He will report to Bob Donahoe and Karen Tyrrell, managing directors of BISYS Hedge Fund Services.

McGuire previously worked in the BISYS Dublin office as a group manager in the hedge fund administration division. Prior to joining BISYS in 2002, McGuire held a number of positions with the hedge fund administrator IFS (Ireland) Ltd (now State Street - IFS).

BISYS Alternative Investment Services has over USD200bn in alternative investment assets under administration, providing services to more than 400 clients and over 1,600 funds, including hedge funds, private equity funds and fund-of-funds.

10JAN06: Rachel Roseman has joined HSBC Securities Services as a relationship manager on the London-based asset manager team, reporting to David Hunt, head of relationship management - fund managers.

Prior to joining HSBC, Roseman was part of the hedge fund relationship management team at The Bank of New York in London. Roseman began her career with Northern Trust in London in 1998.

10JAN06: The Bank of New York has been granted a patent in the UK for a two-way electronic messaging interface between investment managers and their custodian banks. BNY uses the interface for its BNY SmartSource investment manager outsourcing product.

The patented interface sends and receives a variety of complex electronic messages between investment managers, the BNY SmartSource platform and custodian banks.

10JAN06: Clearstream now offers settlement and custody services for Croatian securities, through its Austrian depository Erste Bank.

Clearstream clients can settle domestic free-of-payment transactions in all types of Croatian securities with counterparties of the Croatian CSD Sredisnja Depozitarna Agencija via Erste Bank. Clearstream’s internal instructions through this new link can be settled FoP as well as DvP, but Bridge transactions are excluded from the service.

06JAN06: John Hancock, the primary US operating entity of Canada’s Manulife Financial Corporation, has appointed State Street to provide custody, fund accounting and securities lending services to John Hancock Funds' Lifestyle Portfolios. The Lifestyle Portfolios comprise five retail Lifestyle mutual funds of funds, with 47 underlying mutual fund portfolios and USD15bn in assets.

“We have worked with State Street for more than 15 years, and knew they had the range of capabilities and skills to support multiple requirements of our retail Lifestyle Portfolios' launch,” said Gordon Shone, senior vice president of John Hancock. “We felt comfortable that State Street has the depth and experience to service our operationally complex funds.”

06JAN06: The Bank of New York has reached the USD1trn mark in its daily servicing of tri-party balances in the US. BNY claims it is the first tri-party collateral management provider to reach this milestone.

Over the past two years, BNY has seen around a 55% increase in tri-party balances in the United States, driven by strong demand for collateral management services from broker dealers, banks and institutional investors.

05JAN06: Royal Bank of Canada and Dexia have finalised the joint venture to combine their institutional investor services businesses. The new company, RBC Dexia Investor Services, ranks among the world's top 10 global custodians with assets under custody of approximately USD2.0trn (EUR1.65trn).

Based in London, RBC Dexia Investor Services Limited is the holding company that will provide strategic direction and management oversight to the operating companies, RBC Dexia Investor Services Trust in Canada and RBC Dexia Investor Services Bank in Luxembourg.

José Placido becomes CEO of the new company, with Michel Malpas as deputy CEO and chief marketing officer.

05JAN06: The supervisory board of KAS BANK N.V. will appoint Nico Blom as member of the managing board as of 1 February 2006. Blom will succeed Jan van Veenendaal on his retirement in mid-2006. Blom's responsibility on the managing board will be operational excellence, focusing on further improvement of the service range, covering securities services and payments, investment administration and information systems.

Blom has been working for KAS BANK since 1992, holding various management positions. Since 2003 he has been head of the securities services division.

04JAN06: R&M Consultants, the leading securities research and consulting firm, has announced the latest results of its trustee-based surveys in the UK and Ireland. Both surveys were conducted during October and November 2005.

Citigroup has topped the third R&M UK depositary/trustee Survey for unit trust and OEIC managers and unit holders. According to R&M, Citi “showed a dramatic improvement to its services from the inaugural survey in 2003 when it came in last place”.

For the second year running HSBC finished second, recording a major improvement in its score. One client commented: “Changes in senior management at HSBC have resulted in a higher quality of service. As further proposed changes are implemented we anticipate that the quality of service will continue to be improved.”

In third place was JPMorgan, the only other bank to have improved its score each year.

In Ireland, Mellon has achieved top honours in the second R&M Survey of Dublin trustee banks in succession to Citigroup, last year’s leader.

03JAN06: Mellon has appointed Gunjan Kedia to a new position as executive director for Investment Manager Solutions (IMS) — Americas. She will oversee all IMS market-facing functions in the Americas region, reporting directly to Jack Klinck, Mellon vice chairman and IMS president.

Kedia joined Mellon in March 2004 as director of operations strategy. She is a member of Mellon's senior management committee.

Ranking	Trustee	2006	2005	Change
1	HSBC (2)	6.41	6.02	0.39
2	Citigroup (1)	6.25	6.04	0.21
3	BNY (4)	6.08	5.64	0.44
4	RBS (5)	6.06	5.41	0.65
5	JPMorgan (3)	5.82	5.84	(0.02)
6	State Street (6)	5.66	4.98	0.68
Average		6.03	5.67	0.36

Ranking	Trustee	2006	2005	Change
1	Citigroup (3)	6.58	5.60	0.98
2	Mellon (1)	6.32	6.05	0.27
3	State Street (2)	6.28	5.62	0.66
4	JPMorgan (7)	6.14	5.05	1.09
5	HSBC (5)	5.83	5.12	0.71
6	AIB/BNY (4)	5.53	5.43	0.10
Average		5.97	5.41	0.56

Rank	Organisation	Score
1	The Bank of New York	4.80
2	JPMorgan Chase	4.64
3	Societe Generale	4.51
4	Citigroup	4.46
5	State Street	4.25
6	BNP Paribas	4.01
7	HSBC	3.99
8	Royal Bank of Canada	3.98

Overall Results	2006	2004	Change
HSBC (1)	5.80	5.90	-0.10
State Street (4=)	5.61	5.13	0.48
The Bank of New York (4=)	5.33	5.13	0.20
Mellon (2)	5.07	5.46	-0.39
BNP Paribas (3)	4.85	5.16	-0.31
OVERALL AVERAGE	5.37	5.36	0.01

	Trustee/Depositary (2004 ranking)	2005	2004	2003	Change (04 to 05)
1	Citigroup (3)	6.04	5.73	4.98	0.31
2	HSBC (2)	6.02	5.78	5.78	0.24
3	JPMorgan (4)	5.84	5.67	5.35	0.17
4	Bank of New York (1)	5.64	5.88	5.68	-0.24
5	RBS (5)	5.41	5.66	5.47	-0.25
6	State Street (6)	4.98	5.14	5.19	-0.16

	Dublin Trustee (2004 ranking)	2005	2004	Change
1	Mellon (2)	6.05	5.91	0.14
2	State Street (-)	5.62	-	-
3	Citigroup (1)	5.60	6.49	-0.89
4	AIB/BNY (6)	5.43	4.93	0.50
5	Northern Trust (3)	5.37	5.71	-0.34
6	HSBC (5)	5.12	5.46	-0.34
7	JPMorgan (4)	5.05	5.60	-0.55