US – State Street Corp. has announced the completion of the sale of its corporate trust business unit to US Bank, the lead bank of US Bancorp - the proceeds of which will provide partial funding for the acquisition of various units of Deutsche Bank’s Global Securities Services.

The sale of the corporate trust business results in an after-tax gain of around 296 million dollars for State Street, which will be put towards the 1.5 billion dollar acquisition of Deutsche’s Global Securities Services’ units, announced in November 2002.

State Street won the bid for Deutsche’s business, making the Boston-based firm the largest custodian worldwide, upon the transaction’s completion at the end of February, with eight trillion euros in assets under custody.

Through the acquisition of State Street’s corporate trust business, US Bank takes on 20,000 new client issuances, 365,000 bond holders, and new locations in Boston and Hartford, taking the number of its corporate trust offices to 26. US Bank acquires 689 billion dollars in assets under administration, establishing itself as the largest trustee in the area of municipal finance and the third largest in new corporate bond issuances and structured finance. US Bank’s corporate trust division now has 1.36 trillion in assets under administration.

US Bank serves as trustee and paying agent for the issuance of taxable and non-taxable securities, and also provides mortgage-backed and asset-backed securitisations, money market paying agency services, bond and tax administration, and document custody services. Parent company, US Bancorp, has assets in excess of 174 billion dollars, and is the eight largest financial services holding company in the United States.