DENMARK – Denmark's statutory pension fund ATP has picked Northern Trust to provide custody and collateral management services for its pension assets of around DKK600bn (€80.5bn).

Northern Trust won the contract after being chosen from a short-list of six global custodians, ATP said.

The provider will be replacing ATP's previous custodian, Bank of New York Mellon.

Henrik Gade Jepsen, CIO at ATP, said: "We appointed Northern Trust based on their ability to deliver a tailored custody and collateral management solution that supports our objective of achieving consistently top rates of operational efficiency."

Other key factors in the appointment were the provider's established presence and experience in supporting pension funds, and its global servicing capabilities, he said.

The contract will last for four years, and there is an option for renewal of up to two 12-month periods.

Northern Trust said it was delighted to provide custody and asset servicing to the Danish fund.

Steven Fradkin, president of the company's corporate and institutional services group, said: "By combining our expertise and on-the-ground presence with our scale as a global custodian and fund administrator, we are well positioned to support the needs of sophisticated institutions such as ATP."

Northern Trust said its institutional investor group has around 1,000 pension fund clients for custody and related services and a market share of more than 20% in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

It operates in the Nordic region from its branch office in Stockholm.