A $3.4-trillion-AUM pair of asset managers could find themselves combining, if a rumored merger goes through of their publicly traded, custodian bank parents.

Jose Minaya BNY Head of Investments and Wealth, Executive Committee Member

Perhaps Bank of New York Mellon's BNY Investments [profile] and Northern Trust Corp.'s Northern Trust Asset Management [profile] will end up being combined thanks to a potential larger deal. On Sunday (June 22), the Wall Street Journal reported that the folks at New York City-based BNY Mellon approached Chicago-based Northern Trust about a possible merger. Yesterday (June 23), a Northern Trust spokesperson declined to comment to Bloomberg "on market rumors."*

"I can tell you that Northern Trust is fully committed to remaining independent and continuing to deliver long-term value to our stakeholders," the Northern Trust spokesperson reportedly told Bloomberg.

Both Northern Trust and BNY Mellon are big custody and back-office partners to other asset managers. And both institutional banks also have sizable asset management arms themselves, with both institutional clients and retail mutual funds and ETFs, and with relative newcomers as asset management chiefs.

BNY Investments has been led by global investments and wealth chief Jose Minaya since he joined last year. The fund firm has $2.1 trillion in AUM** across seven boutiques: ARX Investimentos, Dreyfus, Newton Investment Management, Insight Investment, Mellon, Sigulfer Guff, and Walter Scott.

Daniel Gamba has led Northern Trust AM as president of asset management since he joined in 2023. The asset manager has $1.3249 trillion in AUM***, 62.3 percent of which is in passive strategies (versus 37.7 percent in active ones). The majority (57.2 percent) of Northern Trust AM's AUM is in equities, with the bulk of the rest split between cash (24.7 percent), fixed income (12.3 percent), and alternatives (0.9 percent). In addition to Northern Trust-branded offerings, the fund firm also offers ETFs under its own FlexShares brand.

*Bloomberg adds that, per an unnamed source, the two banks' CEOs chatted last week, though not about a specific offer.
**As of December 31, 2024.
***As of March 31, 2025. 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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