BELIGUM – Swiss Life Asset Management’s Belgian operation has signed a letter of intent to outsource its back office functions to State Street, though the structure and fees of the deal are not yet finalised.

The two companies said in a statement that Swiss Life Asset Management (Belgium) will “outsource its administrative, operations and support services for their assets under management to State Street”. SLAM Belgium manages equities, fixed income and money market assets.

Under the agreement, Swiss Life (Belgium) will migrate to the State Street technology platform. This will allow Swiss Life (Belgium), which has 1.8 billion euros in assets under management, to focus on its core business as it seeks to grow. The company received its licence to act as a third-party asset manager at the end of last year.

SLAM Belgium’s marketing director Peter De Coensel said it chose State Street due to its “excellent management information reporting, performance measurement and risk control whilst respecting Association for Investment Management and Research compliance rules”.

“The structure and fees are not set in stone,” said State Street senior vice president John Campbell, though the deal should be finalised within three months. Swiss Life follows PIMCO, Scottish Widows and J W Seligman in outsourcing their operations to State Street in this way, Campbell said. He said it was difficult to put a value on the size of the business because of its complex relationships with clients.

Campbell said State Street hopes to build on this new relationship with Swiss Life. This outsourcing deal is its first business link with the insurer.

State Street has 6.2 trillion dollars in assets under custody and a total 763 billion in assets under management. It is the ninth largest manager of European pension fund assets, with 59.8 billion under management. Swiss Life Asset Management has a total 127 billion Swiss francs under management.

The deal is subject to Belgian regulatory approval.

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