FINLAND - Finland's 12 billion-euro Kuntien eläkevakuutus, or Local Government Pensions Institution, has stuck with the former Global Securities Services arm of Deutsche Bank which is now part of State Street.

Boston-based State Street Corp. said LGPI has appointed it as custodian and fund administrator. A spokesman said the appointment follows a competitive tendering process which the fund has to make every three years. He declined to say how much the contract was worth.

LGPI's chief investment officer Ari Huotari said: "Following State Street's acquisition of Deutsche Bank's global custody business we wanted to benchmark what else was available in the marketplace.

"State Street proved they were able to enhance the service by introducing new technology and services but at the same time retaining the key Deutsche personnel with whom we have excellent working relationship."

State Street bought the GSS business from Deutsche Bank in a 1.5 billion-dollar deal and has been keen to show that it has retained former GSS clients.

Alasdair Reid, State Street's head of pension fund sales in Scandinavia, said: "We are very excited about continuing the relationship with LGPI and look forward to working with them for many years to come."

He added that the appointment "further demonstrates our ability to integrate Deutsche's European client base in an extremely competitive environment".

State Street has a total of 8.5 trillion dollars in assets under custody and 901 billion dollars in assets under management.

The LGPI, which saw the market value of its investments fall six percent in 2002, covers 465,000 local government employees in Finland.