Northern Trust Announces Alliance with BlackRock as Part of Whole Office Strategy

Open Architecture Whole Office Ecosystem Delivers Integrated Middle Office Operations alongside Strategy and Trading, Data and Digital, and Analytical Solutions to Institutional Clients

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As part of its continuing strategy to provide integrated products, services and technology across the entire investment lifecycle, Northern Trust has entered into a strategic alliance with BlackRock to deliver enhanced operations, data, and servicing capabilities to mutual clients. These new capabilities, delivered through Aladdin®, BlackRock’s investment management and operations platform, provide clients with increased efficiency, interoperability and transparency across the back, middle and front office.

The relationship with BlackRock currently supports mutual clients and is an extension of Northern Trust Whole Office™, an approach that integrates Northern Trust’s global asset servicing platform with innovative partners, facilitating client access to new technologies, services and solutions.

“Our Whole Office ecosystem delivers global asset owners and asset managers scale, efficiency, flexibility and optionality, ultimately enabling more informed investment decision making,” said Pete Cherecwich, President of Corporate & Institutional Services at Northern Trust. “We have a long-standing relationship with BlackRock and are excited to be working with them as part of our Whole Office strategy. The alliance connects Northern Trust’s fund accounting, fund administration, asset servicing, and middle office capabilities to BlackRock’s Aladdin platform, creating greater connectivity between asset manager and asset servicer.”

“The current climate has once again demonstrated the importance of data symmetry and streamlining communication across the investment lifecycle from the asset manager to the asset servicer,” said Rob Goldstein, BlackRock's Chief Operating Officer and head of BlackRock Solutions. “BlackRock and Northern Trust are committed to providing increased transparency, accuracy and operating model flexibility for our mutual clients, leveraging our joint capabilities through Aladdin Provider.”

The alliance with BlackRock builds on a series of Northern Trust partnerships and strategic investments to provide solutions that span the investment lifecycle, including:

• Outsourced trade execution for asset managers and owners, and a digital and service platform for global asset allocators
• Currency management and FX algorithmic trading
• Integration with industry trading platforms
• Collateral optimization, risk analytics and digital innovation for asset servicing

“We are following a very clear strategic pathway. We will continue to enhance our capabilities and add future functionality through a combination of buy, build or partner with best-in-class providers to benefit our global asset manager and asset owner clients,” Cherecwich said. “Whole Office is about serving our clients’ needs across the entire investment lifecycle. We are offering a best of all worlds proposition: we don’t need to own every underlying technology or capability. We embrace the integration of partner technology solutions and services with Northern Trust’s proprietary infrastructure to help our clients drive their businesses and ultimately optimize performance.”

Northern Trust Whole Office is an advanced open architecture, multi-asset class solution serving diverse market participants including asset managers, asset owners, investors and third party administrators. By integrating proprietary architecture with innovative partners, Northern Trust Whole Office facilitates client access to new technologies and capabilities across the spectrum of Strategy and Trading, Operational, Data and Digital and Analytics solutions.

About Northern Trust

Northern Trust Corporation (Nasdaq: NTRS) is a leading provider of wealth management, asset servicing, asset management and banking to corporations, institutions, affluent families and individuals. Founded in Chicago in 1889, Northern Trust has a global presence with offices in 22 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., and across 22 locations in Canada, Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region. As of March 31, 2020, Northern Trust had assets under custody/administration of US $10.9 trillion, and assets under management of US $1.1 trillion. For more than 130 years, Northern Trust has earned distinction as an industry leader for exceptional service, financial expertise, integrity and innovation. Visit northerntrust.com or follow us on Twitter @NorthernTrust.

Northern Trust Corporation, Head Office: 50 South LaSalle Street, Chicago, Illinois 60603 U.S.A., incorporated with limited liability in the U.S. Global legal and regulatory information can be found at http://www.northerntrust.com/disclosures.