GLOBAL - State Street Corporation will acquire Investors Financial Services Corporation for $4.5bn (€3.5bn) to bring its assets under custody over the $14trn mark.

Investors Financial Services focuses, like State Street, exclusively on institutional investors. It provides them with a range of investment services including mutual fund, offshore and hedge fund servicing, custody, securities finance, cash management, foreign exchange and transition management.

With the acquisition State Street hopes to bring its assets under custody over the  $14trn mark, up from currently $11.9trn, closing up on JP Morgan which currently has almost $14trn in assets under custody. Once the merger between Bank of New York and Mellon is through the new company will have $17.5trn in assets under custody.

No detailed figures for either State Street's or Investor Financial Services' European operations could be obtained.

At year-end 2005 assets under management for State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) were $275bn out of a total of $1.4trn. Assets under custody for State Street in the EMEA region were $1.5trn out of a total of $10.12trn.

Investor Financial Services' has offices in the UK and Luxembourg.

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