UK – The Merchant Navy Officers Pension Fund has rejigged its custody arrangements – resulting in another major loss by JP Morgan to ABN Amro Mellon (adds JP Morgan comment.)
“The £3.2bn (€4.7bn) Merchant Navy Officers Pension Fund today announced that it had moved its custody operations to ABN Amro Mellon Global Securities Services with effect from May 2,” ABN Amro Mellon said in a release today.

It said it would provide global custody, investment accounting, securities lending and investment monitoring.

The decision follows JP Morgan's loss of a custody mandate at Railpen Investments that was announced earlier today – this also went to ABN Amro Mellon.

IPE reported in November that the MNOPF was reviewing JP Morgan.

A JP Morgan spokeswoman said the bank has won £30bn of UK pensions business in the last year – and that it has 43% of the top 100 pension funds. There’s been “very strong growth in our franchise” she said.

MNOPF investment director Alick Stevenson was quoted as saying by ABN Amro Mellon: "The decision to move was taken after a long and very thorough review of MNOPF's custody needs, using an external tender process, which had been managed by Thomas Murray the leading custody specialist, bank rating and advisory company.”

"We are delighted that MNOPF has chosen ABN Amro Mellon,” added the joint venture chief executive Nadine Chakar.