Northern Trust, a leading provider of global custody, asset administration and investment management services, has been selected by Julius Baer Investments Limited ("JBIL"), Julius Baer's UK institutional investment management business, as its preferred provider of investment outsourcing solutions for JBIL's approximately US$4.5 billion (GBP 2.5 billion) in fixed income assets under management.
The full range of services to be outsourced by JBIL under the proposed agreement are: trade matching, confirmation and settlement, investment record keeping, entitlement processing, pricing, asset set-up, reconciliation, client reporting, valuations and performance analysis.
The agreement is expected to be completed by the end of 2005 when it is anticipated that four JBIL employees will transfer to Northern Trust.
The new agreement is an extension of Northern Trust's existing relationship with Julius Baer's institutional investment management office in New York, for which Northern Trust has been providing middle and back office outsourcing solutions since 2004.
Michael Allen, Senior Manager, Operations at JBIL, said, "Through its partnership with our New York office, Northern Trust has demonstrated over the last year that it can deliver superior services from an operational and technological stand point, and that its approach to human resources and client service is in line with our own practices. It is important to us to be able to work with our selected provider in partnership to maximise synergies and maintain the highest standards for our staff and our clients, and Northern Trust is already showing us that it can meet our needs in all of these areas. We look forward to extending our relationship with Northern Trust into the UK market place."
Camie West, Vice President and Relationship Manager at Northern Trust responsible for the Julius Baer investment operations outsourcing relationship worldwide, commented, "The extension of our relationship with Julius Baer into the UK is a strong endorsement of our capabilities in the investment operations outsourcing field. We'll be working with JBIL to transfer its operations onto our market leading, single, global technology platform - which also supports Julius Baer's investment operations in New York - at the earliest opportunity."
West added, "As more investment managers are outsourcing their back office operations and the market place becomes increasingly complex and more competitive, specialist providers of asset servicing solutions need to be able to show that they understand investment managers' requirements and challenges and demonstrate that they can enhance efficiencies and deliver world class client reporting through superior technology."