GLOBAL - Have you missed the biggest stories in pensions this week? Find out below, as we list the top 10 most popular stories on www.globalpensions.com over the past seven days (13 August - 20 August).

Contingent assets have been used in scheme funding arrangements in the UK for some time, but how popular are they overseas? Chris Panteli finds out.

CANADA/US - The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan has signed a deal with Avista Capital Partners to buy INC Research Inc for an undisclosed sum.

AUSTRALIA - Australia's Superannuation industry has criticised Tony Abbott's coalition party for failing to release a substantive pensions policy just hours before the General Election.

ARGENTINA - Argentina's lower house approved an opposition-backed bill to boost the country's minimum monthly pension payments and link them to the minimum wage, a move the government said would bankrupt the current system.

NETHERLANDS - Fourteen Dutch pension funds will have to cut their pay-outs to pensioners before the end of the year, social affairs minister Piet Hein Donner has announced.

US - The State of New Jersey has settled charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission that it fraudulently misled municipal-bond investors while underfunding the state's two biggest pension plans.

NETHERLANDS - ING Groep NV's Dutch pension fund's coverage ratio rose to about 116% at the end of July from 114% at the end of June.

KOREA/FRANCE - Hammerson has agreed to sell 51% of its interest in a Paris shopping centre to the National Pension Service of Korea (NPS) for €217m ($278m).

US - The California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS) has appointed John Petzold as its first director of investment management/deputy chief investment officer.