Search the results Northern Trust focuses entirely on looking after client assets and will not be distracted by ventures into other banking sectors
Northern Trust was outside the top 10 of private banks in the US when Euromoney undertook its first private banking survey two years ago; now it ranks fourth behind JPMorgan, Citigroup and UBS. Its performance is all the more impressive compared with such bulge-bracket competitors because, 116 years after its foundation, Northern Trust still focuses on just two main business lines: personal financial services and corporate and institutional services. In both personal and corporate business, it concentrates on the management and administration of client assets. It is not in retail banking, nor does it have an investment banking business.
From to small to big
Northern Trust entered the personal and corporate trust business in 1889, when the bank sprang to life in one room in a building in Chicago, where it employed six people – founder and president Byron Laflin Smith, a cashier who also worked as a secretary, two book-keepers, a general man and a teller.
Today the bank, which still has its headquarters in Chicago, is the largest private bank trust company in the US. Its personal financial services business unit, providing private banking, personal trust, custody and investment management services to high net-worth individuals, families and family offices, has assets under custody of $219 billion, 84 offices in 18 US states, and offices in 11 other countries.
It caters for all parts of the private client spectrum. It offers private banking services to individuals with $1 million in assets, and its wealth advisory group targets clients with assets of about $25 million to $75 million. At the top end of the scale, its wealth management group offers specialized global services for affluent individuals and families. The development of this part of the business has been particularly dramatic. That group currently serves 338 families in 48 US states and 15 foreign countries, including 24% of the Forbes 400 group of families. At end-September 2005, the wealth management unit had $109 billion in assets, a seven-fold increase on its position in this market a decade ago.
