Well, that didn’t age well. Barely a month after I argued that BBH’s investor services business should remain independent, it goes and does a USD3.5bn deal with State Street. Whilst the counterparties might hope that I would entitle this article “Stairway to Heaven”, it’s probably fairer to call it “You Might Think”, and here’s why.…
Category: Analysis
The Song Remains The Same – the market needs Brown Brothers Harriman to remain independent. Here’s why.
Did you, like me, have to stifle a yawn when you read the “news” that BBH had been in talks with BNP Paribas Securities Services about a possible merger? “Here we go again,” was my initial reaction. Those of us who have been in and around the industry for more years than we care to…
CHANGING LANES – Custody banks are still big players in the M&A space – it’s just their focus that has changed.
Who remembers when The Bank of New York bought a 4.9pct stake in what was then KAS-Associate in 2001? At a time when BNY was buying almost indiscriminately, it looked as if KAS would be yet another deal. But it didn’t turn out that way, and KAS had to wait until 2019 to be rescued…
More than a Feeling – Boston’s inserv powerhouse wins client validation
19APR21: Oops – something went wrong! Surely it wasn’t meant to be like this. After three years of its competitors claiming that State Street’s acquisition of Charles River meant that it was no longer committed to open architecture, an inconvenient truth emerged: State Street can walk and chew gum at the same time. The evidence…
Finish What You Started – why 2021 could be even better than 2020
First, the boring bit – some facts. 2020 was a record year: most reported mandates, M&A transactions, and people moves since I began recording them in 1999. The WFH culture certainly didn’t stop inserv providers from building their businesses, nor their clients from launching new products. Of the 180 reported mandates, 39 were related to…
TALKING IN YOUR SLEEP: ISSA claims to offer thought leadership, but its latest report is flawed and misinformed.
ISSA – the Zurich-based International Securities Services Association – is a sponsored talking shop. With a grab bag membership of global and local custodians, CSDs, exchanges and tech companies, it has always struggled to define its raison d’être. Its achievements are modest, and much of the valuable work it might have taken on has instead…
Eruption – October 2020
ERUPTION (Eddie Van Halen RIP) Custodians respond to the new normal – and it’s working. 13 October 2020: Welcome to our world, you could hear the Europeans and Japanese muttering under their breath as the U.S. banks began to confront the reality of a long-term low/no interest rate environment. But, for the trust banks at…
Lunatic Fringe – why the frenzy over BlackRock’s RFP is misplaced
First, a quick history lesson. When BlackRock decided to move USD1trn of common trust fund assets from State Street to J.P. Morgan, the bank said it expected to onboard the assets “over the next two years”. That never happened. In fact, it took over three years to finish the project. Transitions are complicated, and J.P.…
HI HO SILVER LINING: Asset values may have dropped off a cliff, but inserv administrators see opportunities in the midst of the pandemic
The trust banks enjoyed the first quarter of 2020. FX earnings were up across the board as volatility returned. After a generally undistinguished 2019, the banks bounced back in Q1 2020. But how is the rest of the year going to play out? When your social and business lives are conducted through Zoom, Teams, FaceTime…
RUNNING ON THE SPOT – InServ providers need to make more money. Gathering assets is not the answer.
3 April 2020: Here’s an interesting fact. At the end of 2015, J.P. Morgan’s securities services business reported Q4 revenues of USD933m, and AuC of USD19.9trn. At the end of 2019, the same business reported AuC of USD26.8trn, and Q4 revenues of USD1.1bn. In case you are too weary from quarantine or lockdown or Netflix…