NEW YORK - Mellon Bank Corp. of Pittsburgh and State Street Boston Corp. said they recently completed acquisitions of corporate trust businesses.
Mellon acquired the corporate trust unit of CoreStates Financial Corp., Philadelphia, and State Street bought the corporate trust unit of its local rival, Bank of Boston Corp.
Both moves were seen as evidence of the increasing economies of scale in the corporate trust specialty.
With the transaction completed, Mellon will administer about 3,500 trustee and agency accounts with more than $35 billion of assets in Pennsylvania. Mellon manages or administers more than $910 billion worldwide.
CoreStates also agreed to sell the corporate trust business of its New Jersey National Bank subsidiary to a unit of Bank of New York Co.
State Street, already one of the largest corporate trustees, raised its outstanding bonds under trusteeship by about $60 billion, to more than $270 billion.
Becoming trustee, paying agent, transfer agent, and escrow agent for Bank of Boston's 1,400 corporate trust accounts, State Street took on its competitor's corporate trust employees, who will relocate to State Street's Boston facilities.
Related to the sale, agreed to in June, Bank of Boston formed a shareholder services joint venture with State Street.
