Northern Trust reports profit

Chicago-based Northern Trust Corp.'s first-quarter earnings more than doubled on a gain from selling Visa Inc. shares as part of credit-card company's initial public offering. Excluding the Visa gain, Northern Trust earned $231.7 million, or $1.03 a share. Assets under custody rose 6.1 percent to $3.98 trillion from a year earlier. New customers helped offset a slowdown in the global equity markets and subprime mortgage-related losses that spread to money-market funds. Northern Trust said Feb. 22 it would provide as much as $229 million to eight money funds to offset potential losses on debt issued by structured investment vehicles.