OREANDA-NEWS. June 08, 2015. Northern Trust (Nasdaq: NTRS) has been selected to provide investment operations outsourcing services to RPMI Railpen, the in-house asset manager for the GB?21 billion (approximately US\\$32 billion) Railways Pension Scheme and a top 10 pension fund in the UK.  

Under the terms of the agreement Northern Trust will provide trade matching, derivative processing and lifecycle management, active collateral management and book of record services.

“We are pleased to select Northern Trust whose experience and expertise in delivering investment operations outsourcing solutions for both start-up and established in-house managed asset owners and asset managers were key factors in their appointment,” said Nicola Dymond, COO Investments at RPMI Railpen.  “Over the last 18 months RPMI Railpen has undertaken a strategically important Investment Transformation Programme, part of which required the development of in-house management as one of our implementation models, where previously we had relied almost exclusively on external investment managers. The in-house model allows us to reduce implementation costs and ultimately return value to the Scheme and members. As part of this, Northern Trust gives us timely access to operational scale and breadth of capability without the associated capital expenditure.” 

“At Northern Trust, we understand the unique and often complex requirements of asset owners and design tailored solutions to meet their specific needs,” said Penelope Biggs, head of the Institutional Investor Group for Europe, Middle East and Africa, at Northern Trust. “As a market leader in investment operations outsourcing, we understand that access to tried and tested middle office services delivered through a sophisticated platform is particularly attractive to asset owners looking to build in-house management capabilities.”

This latest appointment reinforces Northern Trust’s leadership position in the UK pension fund market where it now provides an extensive range of back and middle office services to six of the top 10 pension funds in the UK, together representing more than GB?240 billion in assets and approximately one fifth of the entire UK pensions market. It provides full investment operations outsourcing services to 36 clients and component outsourcing to 35 clients on its strategic global platform. 

“Northern Trust’s industry leading technology and proven expertise enable our clients to achieve greater efficiencies through outsourcing - reducing the administrative burden of fund management, increasing the scale and flexibility of their investment operations and allowing them to focus on achieving their business goals,” added Biggs.