The giant ABP pension fund for Dutch civil servants has appointed Chase Manhattan as custodian for its domestic equity portfolio. This follows the withdrawal of the Dutch central bank from providing custody services.

With $120bn of total assets, ABP has a large Dutch equity portfolio. The fund was already using Chase Global Investor Services for its international assets. Our relationship with ABP originally started around future clearing services some years ago and that led to the international portfolio custody," says Stephen Goldman of Chase in London.

In addition to custody, it will provide accounting and securities lending, as well as futures clearing services. Chase Asset Management has been awarded the investment management of the cash aspects of the domestic portfolio.

Mark Chamieh of Chase Asset Management in London says: "ABP wants to maximise the returns on the guilder cash balances. We are doing a daily sweep for them and in vesting a considerable amount on a daily basis." Currently, the managers are obtaining one month Libor plus returns for the client as well as being able to give them daily access to the funds. "With the volumes of money involved we have the capacity to push out a little further on the yield curve," he says.

Though Chase does not have cash management associated with the international portfolio, Chamieh says the trend is growing to bring both the custody and management sides together. It is understood that there were four custody groups asked to pitch for the business. Fennell Betson"

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