JPMorgan Chase & Co., Northern Trust Corp., Bank of New York Mellon Corp. and State Street Corp. all reportedly filed applications to serve as the custodian for the Treasury Department’s $700 billion financial rescue plan.
In its RFP for the position, the Treasury Department said that along with providing custody services, the winning applicant would be charged with valuing troubled assets and running the auctions to acquire the assets from financial institutions. The program’s custodian could be announced as soon as Friday.
Northern Trust filed a joint application with NYSE Euronext, according to sources who asked not to be identified. Under its proposal, NYSE Euronext would conduct the auctions for the troubled assets, and Northern Trust would handle custody and other operations, the sources said.
Representatives of all five firms declined to comment.
Also, a spokeswoman at Goldman Sachs & Co. confirmed that the company had applied to manage mortgage security assets acquired in the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program. “We were asked to submit a proposal, and we did submit one, on a no-fee basis,” the Goldman Sachs spokeswoman said.
One source said more than 100 firms had been asked to submit proposals.
Among the other asset managers who submitted applications were PIMCO and BlackRock, sources said.
Spokesmen for the companies declined comment. Jennifer Zuccarelli, a Treasury Department spokeswoman, declined to identify any of the applicants and would not say how many applications the department had received.
