GLOBAL - Northern Trust Global Advisors, the manager-of-managers arm of the Chicago-based bank, has named Andrew Smith as chief investment officer.

He replaces Margaret Towle, who has left to set up her own firm, a spokeswoman said.

Smith will be responsible for manager research and portfolio construction covering $31.2bn (€25.4bn) in assets under management. He will report to NTGA’s chief executive William Huffman.

Smith joined NTGA in 2000 and was previously manager of investments and portfolio series at Spectrum Investments.

"With more than 20 years of industry experience, Andrew has strong expertise in portfolio manager research and asset allocation,” Huffman said. “As we continue to experience robust growth in NTGA, Andrew's experience will be extremely valuable."

Earlier, Northern Trust said the Sony UK Pension Fund has awarded it a £65m (€96m) mandate to provide custody services to its UK equity assets.

Some of these assets are managed by boutique fund manager, Majedie Asset Management, which has more than £1.5bn under management.

Majedie’s client director Simon Hazlitt told IPE he was “pleased” to be working with Northern Trust.

“We already have a close working relationship with them on a number of trusts. We hope it will work for the benefit of the client in the long run.”

“We look forward to working both with Majedie and Sony. UK pension funds continue to be a key focus for us as we see more trustees seeking the benefits of administration solutions provided by global custodians,” said Northern Trust’s UK vice president Sally-Anne Callick.

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