Northern secures UK distribution

US manager to take advantage of Scottish Equitable’s UK retail sales channel. US fund manager Northern Trust, whose European retail distribution was previously confined to a lucrative arrangement with Italian house Mediolanum, will market multi-manager funds in the UK through insurance company Scottish Equitable. The new deal will tap into Scottish Equitable’s channel of independent advisers. “This is part of our strategy to develop new segments of the market, but we have been constrained until now as we have not had the right legal vehicles,” revealed Tony Earnshaw, managing director of European multi-manager business at Northern Trust. “While this is an exclusive partnership with Scottish Equitable, it won’t cut us off from other deals,” he added, commenting on rumours that Northern will sign a deal with an offshore wealth management provider. He said Northern targeted ScotEq, a subsidiary of Dutch insurer Aegon, because “they have good access to the retail pension market”. Northern has created two funds for ScotEq, based on a combination of its Dublin-based funds. The relationship will be more interactive than the arms-length partnership with Mediolanum’s tied sales force.