Institutional fund manager QIC has entered into an investment operations outsourcing agreement with Northern Trust Corporation following a comprehensive due diligence and selection process.
Under the deal, Northern Trust will provide a suite of middle-office functions, including unit pricing, registry, trade services, reconciliations, investment accounting, and performance and risk analytics.
The United States-based group will also provide post-trade compliance monitoring, client reporting, fee administration and billing.
"Outsourcing middle-office services will give QIC a flexible and scalable operational platform to support our local and global investment management activities," QIC chief executive Doug McTaggart said.
"We chose Northern Trust because of their depth and breadth of expertise in middle-office services and their ability to deliver what QIC is looking for."
The appointment reflected Northern Trust's ability to provide a broad range of market-leading solutions for asset managers and asset owners in the region, Northern Trust managing director for Australia and New Zealand Paul Cutts said.
"We look forward to supporting QIC's continued growth in the Australian fund market, as well as the launch of new fund structures in Europe and other markets where QIC sees demand for its institutional strategies," Cutts said.
McTaggart said incumbent custodian National Australia Bank Asset Servicing had been retained for back-office services.
QIC had $55.9 billion under management as at December 2010.
