The size of the deal is startling. The firm created by the merger of BlackRock and Barclays Global Investors - BlackRock Global Investors - will have assets under management of over $2.7trn and employ more than 9000 people in 24 different countries.

It could not have been a worse week for defined benefit pension scheme provision in the UK.

Daily Mail and General Trust have appointed Hewitt Associates to provide scheme actuary and related services to their pension schemes.

Mercer and Callan Associates have terminated their 17 February agreement to merge their investment consulting businesses.

Communisis is set to de-risk up to three-quarters of its scheme liabilities in a programme of buyouts, buy-ins and enhanced transfer offers.

THE Dairy Crest Group Pension Fund has purchased a £150m bulk annuity policy from Legal & General Assurance Society.

SCHEME wind-up victims should be first in line for cash payments from the Commission on Unclaimed Assets, MPs have said.

LABOUR backbench MP Frank Field has hit back at critics who claim his proposed Universal State Pension is too risky.

THE GOVERNMENT has turned to backbench Labour MP Frank Field to advise on pension reform.

WHAT has taken the government so long? After nearly eight years in the political wilderness of the backbenches, Frank Field is at last being given an active part to play in the government's quest for pension reform.