Olivier Noel (Northern Trust Global Services SE): Scaling private markets from Luxembourg

Olivier Noel, CEO of Northern Trust Global Services SE, outlines the firm’s Luxembourg expansion, client focus, and strategic investment in private markets, technology, and banking capabilities.

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Please describe Northern Trust’s business in Luxembourg in a few words.

Luxembourg is one of our most strategically important growth locations. With more than 400 professionals in Luxembourg business, we administer over $360 billion in assets across 750-plus funds [1] and continue to expand our capabilities to support clients as they enter the European marketplace or look to further scale their business here. We support asset managers, institutional investors, family offices, and other professional clients. These clients domicile their funds here and draw on the Grand Duchy’s funds industry expertise, technical capability and robust, effective regulatory framework to distribute their funds to investors around the world.

Luxembourg is a key hub for our European business and home to our EU bank, Northern Trust Global Services SE. We are part of Northern Trust, a global financial services corporation established in 1889, today providing asset servicing, asset management, wealth management and banking solutions worldwide.

[1] Figures as of 31 December 2025. Source: Northern Trust

Private markets investing continue to be a global growth story. What is Northern Trust’s role in supporting this trend from Luxembourg?

Northern Trust acts as an enabler for our clients helping them to accelerate the growth of private markets funds distributed from Luxembourg as the EU’s private capital powerhouse. Our role is to support Luxembourg’s position as the undisputed distribution and structuring centre for private markets in Europe. We are playing an active role in that ecosystem by providing a full operating stack—depository, fund administration, banking and data—that helps GPs use Luxembourg as their global launchpad.

We have invested heavily to build a resilient, scalable operating platform tailored to the needs of private equity, private credit, real assets and the fast expanding semi liquid segment as we see private markets as a core strategic growth engine, and Luxembourg as the backbone of that ambition. Our involvement with industry bodies such as LPEA, ALFI or the Luxembourg Alternative Administrators Association reflects our commitment to working collaboratively across the market.

"Luxembourg: a global launchpad for private market strategies."

How is your Luxembourg business evolving?

Our Luxembourg business is evolving in three clear ways. First, we are seeing strong momentum in private markets and hybrid strategies, reflecting where asset managers are allocating capital. In Luxembourg, 2025 was a record year for us for new-business onboarding with over $40 billion of assets onboarded and over 50% of growth coming from private capital.

Second, we are investing heavily in technology, data and automation to enhance client experience with faster access to information so they can focus on what really matters to them. Thirdly, we aim to expand the banking solutions offered through Northern Trust Global Services SE. This will strengthen our position as a partner of choice for cross border fund structures, enhance cash and liquidity services, and support the continued expansion of private market clients using Luxembourg as their European hub.

These steps demonstrate our ongoing dedication to European clients and to Luxembourg—a major global financial centre that continues to be significant to our corporation.