Northern Trust to install GIPS platform in outsourcing deal

LONDON – Northern Trust, one of the world's largest private banking, asset management and asset servicing firms, with around $600 billion under management and $2.9 trillion under custody, is implementing PerformaGlobal, a Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS)-compliant performance management platform from Performa. The contract will allow Northern Trust to offer its outsourcing clients GIPS-compliant performance reports, which long-only asset managers are increasingly using as part of the marketing strategy to attract additional capital.

Northern Trust currently has a large unnamed UK-based investment manager signed to the PerformaGlobal platform, which, according to Anthony Howland, Performa's chief executive, is scheduled to go live in early July this year. The roll-out of PerformaGlobal began at the start of January this year.

Jim Trotter, senior vice-president at Northern Trust, explains that even though his firm had a number of proprietary performance tools that "had various aspects of GIPS composite capabilities within them", client demands proved a catalyst for enhancing its service offering with Performa's capabilities.

"We had been thinking about offering GIPS-compliant reports, but the client also wanted us to do it," he says.

"If a client wants GIPS compliance or even maintenance of composites [assuming they are already GIPS compliant] we will do that on their behalf using the tool," he adds.

Performa's Howland says the Northern Trust 'outsourcer' contract is the first of its kind for his firm – Performa's 40 other investment management client sites spread across the UK (where 75% of the firm's revenues are generated), western Europe, the US and Asia, license the platform directly from the vendor.