Bank of New York Mellon Corp confirmed it is exploring a potential sale of its corporate trust business, while also saying it will take a severance charge for the current quarter. The bank’s CFO Todd Gibbon said the trust bank is exploring whether its corporate trust business is worth significantly more to someone else. Depending on the outcome, he said the bank could either pursue a sale or decide to retain the business. There have been earlier reports that the bank has hired Goldman Sachs Group to explore a sale of its corporate trust arm. The corporate trust business processes principal and interest payments for companies, municipal governments and others that issue debt and represents investors in defaults, among other functions. Profits in the business have shriveled in recent years as revenue from structured-debt instruments constructed before the financial crisis has fallen.
