The story
The company traces its roots to Union Bank, which received a charter in 1792 from Massachusetts Governor John Hancock. It was the third bank to be chartered in Boston and its office was at the corner of State and Exchange Streets.
In 1865, Union Bank received a national charter and became the National Union Bank of Boston. The bank later built a headquarters at Washington and State streets. The company is named after State Street in Boston, which was known as the "Great Street to the Sea" in the 18th century as Boston became a flourishing maritime capital. State Street Deposit & Trust Co opened in July 1891. The name was shortened to State Street Trust Company in 1897. It became the custodian of the first U.S. mutual fund in 1924, the Massachusetts Investors Trust (now MFS Investment Management).
20th century
State Street and National Union Bank merged in October 1925. The merged bank took the State Street name, but National Union was the nominal survivor, and it operated under National Union's charter, thus giving the current entity its rank among the oldest banks in the United States. The company merged with Second National Bank in 1955 and with the Rockland-Atlas National Bank in 1961. In 1966, the company completed construction of the State Street Bank Building, a new headquarters building, the first high-rise office tower in downtown Boston.
In 1972, the company opened its first international office in Munich. In 1973, as a 50/50 joint venture with DST Systems, the company formed Boston Financial Data Services, a provider of shareholder record-keeping, intermediary and investor services, and regulatory compliance. More than 100 top staff from IBM were hired by State Street as it set about implementing IBM mainframe computer systems. In 1975, William Edgerly became president and chief executive officer of the bank and shifted the company's strategy from commercial banking to investments and securities processing. During the 1980s and 1990s, the company opened offices in Montreal, Toronto, Dublin, London, Paris, Dubai, Sydney, Wellington, Hong Kong, and Tokyo.
By 1992, most of State Street's revenue came from fees for holding securities, settling trades, keeping records, and performing accounting. In 1994, the company formed State Street Global Advisors, a global asset management business. In 1995, State Street acquired Investors Fiduciary Trust of Kansas City for $162 million from DST Systems and Kemper Financial Services. In 1996, Bank of New York acquired the unit investment trust servicing business of Investors Fiduciary Trust Co., Kansas City, Mo. In 1997, State Street set up its office in Singapore. In 1999, State Street sold its retail and commercial banking businesses to Citizens Financial Group.
21st century
In 1990, State Street Bank Luxembourg was founded, and as of 2018 was the largest player in the country's fund industry by assets. In 2003, the company acquired the securities services division of Deutsche Bank for $1.5 billion. The company also sold its corporate trust business to U.S. Bancorp for $725 million. Also in 2003, State Street sold its private asset management business to U.S. Trust. In July 2007, the company acquired Investors Bank & Trust for $4.5 billion. In October 2008, the United States Department of the Treasury invested $2 billion in the company as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program and in July 2009, the company became the first major financial firm to repay the Treasury.
In 2010, the company acquired Mourant International Finance Administration. It also acquired the securities services group of Intesa Sanpaolo for $1.87 billion. In December 2010, the company announced that it would be retrenching 5% of its workforce and effectively reducing the hourly wages of remaining employees by 10% via increased standard work hours. In November 2011, the company was named one of the world's 29 systemically important banks. In 2012, the company acquired Goldman Sachs Administration Services, a hedge fund administrator, for $550 million. In November 2014, the company sold SSARIS Advisors, its hedge fund unit, to senior management. In 2016, State Street launched a program called Beacon, focused on cutting costs and improving reporting technology. Their main focus was to shrink their US workforce in order to bolster profits in excess of $2.5 billion (2018 figures). Also in 2016, the company acquired the asset management business of General Electric. In 2017, the company announced that Jay Hooley, the chief executive officer of the company, would retire, to be succeeded by Ronald P. O’Hanley, then vice chairman, president and CEO of State Street Global Advisors.
In 2018, State Street completed its acquisition of Charles River Development, a Burlington, Massachusetts provider of investment management software. The deal closed October 1, 2018, at a cost of approximately $2.6 billion that will be financed by the suspension of share repurchases and the issuing of common and preferred equity. News of the acquisition led to a drop in State Street shares of nearly 10% with share prices remaining flat since the purchase.
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In January 2019, State Street announced that it planned to lay off 1,500 employees, increasing the number to 2,300 in July. During that period, the company shifted their workforce from the United States to countries like China, India and Poland and operated under a hiring freeze. Increased overseas hiring resulted in a net gain of employment of over 3,000.
In September 2021, State Street agreed to buy Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.'s investor-services business for $3.5 billion in cash. Following continued scrutiny in receiving regulatory approvals, the deal was mutually agreed to be dropped in November 2022.
In February 2025, State Street agreed to acquire Mizuho Financial Group's global custody and related business outside of Japan. This covered approximately US $580 billion in assets under custody and US $24 billion under administration. The transaction is expected to close in late 2025. In late 2025, State Street officially opened a Middle East & North Africa Regional Headquarters (RHQ) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In addition, on November 10, 2025, the company signed a cooperation agreement with Albilad Capital to support securities services in Saudi Arabia.
From Wikipedia’s article on State Street Corporation, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.8