Northern is leveraging its expertise in dealing with institutional pension portfolios, and Northern Trust Passport, a Web-based account reporting and information management delivery system, to offer corporate treasury staff a new level of flexibility in managing corporate custody portfolios.

While these tools have been widely available as pension plan management tools for some time, many corporations have historically been slow to invest corporate assets with the same vigor and sophistication as their pension portfolios.

Deal Tracking

Griff Ehrenstrom, Vice President, The Northern Trust Company, told PLANSPONSOR.com that while the service is largely comparable to services already offered to pension programs, it also accommodates the monitoring and reporting on deal-specific transactions and holding information – including monitoring of restriction types, holding periods, IPO dates and lock-up periods. 

The product was developed in collaboration with companies with so-called “strategic” investment portfolios like Microsoft. 

Northern Trust is offering traditional safekeeping with enhanced services, including:

• An expedited security re-registration process
• Tracking of entitlements
• Monitoring/reporting of the holding, sale, and volume restrictions

Customers can also:

• Trade online with Northern Trust’s trading input network that interfaces with the client’s portfolio management system and automates data flow
• Track and consolidate deal-specific transactions and holding information, while monitoring restriction types, holding periods, IPO dates, and lock-up periods
• Track and process corporate actions
• Access account information via Sherlock, Northern Trust’s ad-hoc inquiry tool
• Tap into consultative analysis and risk reporting tools
• Take advantage of Northern Trust’s securities lending program.