UK – St. James's Place, the wealth management firm with eight billion pounds (6.5 billion euros) under management, has awarded State Street Corp. a custody and fund accounting mandate.

The appointment resulted in HSBC and Bank of New York losing custody mandates. BoNY said it retained trusteeship for the unit trust business.

"We did have the custody mandate, up to November 2003, this has now gone to State Street as part of their review to combine their custody and fund administration under one umbrella," said a BoNY spokesman.

Dave Green, of HSBC's custody arm Global Investor Services, was not immediately available for comment.

State Street was appointed after a selection process, during which five to 10 managers were considered, St James's said.

Andrew Croft, finance director for St. James's Place, said: "We appointed State Street as our preferred provider following a rigorous competitive selection process. We look forward to building a long and rewarding relationship."

Alasdair Reid, State Street's head of sales for investor services in the UK, said: "Winning additional business from the former Deutsche Bank clients highlights the strength of the relationships we have built and the high levels of client satisfaction with our services."

The Boston-based bank bought Deutsche Bank's Global Securities Services business a year ago for 1.5 billion dollars.

State Street also said it had 9.4 trillion dollars in assets under custody and approximately 1.1 trillion in assets under management in more than 100 markets worldwide.

Meanwhile, Abbey said it has moved its first fund to multi manager, following the announcement its new fund management strategy in January this year. Abbey has appointed three new fund managers for its largest unit trust. They are: State Street Global Advisors (50%), J P Morgan Fleming (25%) and Barclays Global Investors (25%).

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