Northern Trust announced an expansion of its long-standing relationship with the North Dakota Retirement and Investment Office (NDRIO) to include outsourced trading services, supporting the agency’s strategy to bring more of its State Investment Board’s (SIB) asset management in-house.
Building on a partnership that began with custody services in 1990, NDRIO will leverage Northern Trust’s Integrated Trading Solutions (ITS) platform to enhance trading efficiency and execution coverage for assets that will be managed by the agency rather than external investment firms.
NDRIO manages investments for more than two dozen SIB client funds, the largest being the $12 billion North Dakota Legacy Fund, Public Employees Retirement System, Teachers’ Fund for Retirement, and Workforce Safety & Insurance Fund.
In a statement, Melanie Pickett, head of Asset Servicing for Americas at Northern Trust, described the move after 35 years as becoming an “extension of [NDRIO’s] team, providing an efficient and scalable outsourced trading and operations platform to support their investment strategy”.
“NDRIO is at a pivotal and exciting stage in its evolution as we continue to build scale and enhance our internal investment platform to better serve the SIB’s diverse client funds,” said chief investment officer Scott Anderson, in a statement. “Our partnership with Northern Trust reflects a deliberate move to align with a provider that brings deep expertise in trading, settlement, and operational excellence. Their demonstrated capabilities are integral to our strategy, enabling us to operate with greater efficiency, reliability, and scalability as we bring more assets in-house.”
Northern Trust’s outsourced trading capability combines worldwide agency-only trading expertise in equities, fixed income and exchange traded derivatives across global markets, coverage from multiple trading locations, access to high-quality liquidity and a fully integrated middle and back-office service. ITS helps asset owners and asset managers to meaningfully lower costs, reduce risk, manage regulatory compliance and enhance transparency and operational efficiency.
ITS is offered through Institutional Brokerage, a part of Northern Trust Banking & Markets, which also provides foreign exchange, securities lending and transition management services.