State Street wins HPFM custody rights

State Street Australia has won custody rights to the unit trust business of wholesale group Hopkins Partners Funds Management (HPFM).

State Street Australia has won custody rights to the unit trust business of wholesale group Hopkins Partners Funds Management (HPFM).

State Street has taken over custody from National Australia Bank Custodians and will also offer HPFM some backoffice services as part of the deal, including unit registry, daily pricing and accounting.

HPFM director, Stephen Rix says the successful handling of three discretionary mandates by State Street was the main reason HPFM switched its custody from National Australia Bank to State Street at the end of May.

“State Street has demonstrated their responsiveness, flexibility and partnership ap-proach through the management of these mandates and we sought to harness these capabilities,” Rix says.

HPFM is the second group to outsource parts of their backoffice to State Street. This time last year, EquitiLink signed on with State Street.

State Street Global Investor Services Group’s director of sales and marketing Chris Anderson says the move reflects his group’s global technology prowess.

“There is an increasing trend among investment managers to outsource their back-office, as spending on IT and technology continues to increase. We can bring that technology to these managers,” he says.

While State Street does act as a single responsible entity for several parties, Ander-son says the group will continue to concentrate on the wholesale custody market.

State Street Australia has $95 billion in assets under custody.