State Street Named Custodian for the Weir Group Pension Scheme

Business Wire, June 28, 2004

LONDON -- Mandate Highlights that State Street's Continues to Win New Business from Pension Funds in the U.K. while Successfully Transitioning Former GSS Business

State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT), the world's leading provider of services to institutional investors, announced today that it has been appointed as investment service provider for the Weir Group Pension Scheme. State Street will provide global custody, fund accounting, foreign exchange and cash management services for The Weir Group's GBP 400 million pension fund. WM Company, State Street's Edinburgh-based investment performance and analytics business, will also extend its provision of performance measurement services to the entire fund.

"After a competitive selection process, we appointed State Street as custodian because of its expertise in servicing U.K. pension funds," said Philip Batty, Group Pensions Manager for The Weir Group PLC. "The opportunity to take advantage of State Street's value-added services in the future was another factor in our decision."

State Street continues to underscore its leadership in servicing European pension clients. Since the beginning of the 2004, the company has won a number of significant pension fund mandates in the U.K. and continental Europe. In the U.K. alone, State Street has a 30 percent market share in servicing collective investments and an 11 percent market share in servicing pensions.

"Our dedicated team with extensive experience and knowledge of the U.K. pension market and its servicing requirements, along with our proven track record, are key factors in our success. We are delighted to add the Weir Group Pension Scheme to our growing list of clients," said Alasdair Reid, State Street's head of sales for investor services in the U.K.

State Street also continues to make significant headway in its transition of clients in the U.K following its acquisition of Deutsche Bank's global services businesses (GSS). Two of the largest U.K. pension fund clients have recently migrated successfully to State Street systems. State Street is providing global custody, securities lending, investment accounting, foreign exchange and performance measurement for The BP Pension Fund with GBP 10 billion in assets. State Street also provides global custody and securities lending for GBP 6 billion of the Universities Superannuation Scheme's (USS) pension fund, an increase of approximately 30 percent from the previous position under GSS.

"The fact that we are exceeding our integration goals in the U.K for the GSS business, in addition to continuing to win mandates from new clients, clearly indicates that we haven't skipped a beat in client service or product innovation while growing to be the leading investment service provider in Europe," said Jeff Conway, senior vice president and head of State Street's investment servicing business in northern Europe, the Middle East and South Africa.

Operations in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Switzerland and the U.K., combined with a state-of-the-art fund-servicing centre in Luxembourg, enable State Street to provide its clients with local support and service coupled with global scale and implementation. State Street's array of investment servicing solutions, based on the experience gained from working with clients in Europe for the past 30 years, meet the requirements of institutional investors such as pension funds, multinationals, unit trusts, insurance companies, asset managers and government agencies.

State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT) is the world's leading specialist in providing institutional investors with investment servicing, investment management, investment research and trading services. With $9.4 trillion in assets under custody, and $1.2 trillion in assets under management, State Street operates in 24 countries and more than 100 markets worldwide.