Bank of New York Mellon Corp said it has decided to keep its large corporate trust arm. The trust bank in May had said it was exploring a potential sale of its corporate trust business, which processes principal and interest payments for companies, municipal governments and others that issue debt. The unit of BNY Mellon, which services $12 trillion in outstanding debt, also represents investors in defaults, among other functions. BNY Mellon chief executive Gerald Hassell had indicated that BNY Mellon would only sell the arm at a much higher price than the $2.5 billion mentioned in some reports about the business in recent months. Hassell now said BNY Mellon would keep the corporate trust business since the firm hadn’t received an offer with the kind of premium it was looking for. BNY Mellon posted a profit of $577 million, down from $843 million in the prior-year period. Per-share earnings fell to 48 cents from 71 cents.
