Linking retirement age to a mortality index would remove some political risk around increasing the length of time employees work, Mercer chief retirement strategist Bruce Rigby says.

GLOBAL - Linking retirement age to a mortality index would remove some political risk around increasing the length of time employees work, said Mercer's chief retirement strategist Bruce Rigby.

CANADA - The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board reached C$140.1bn ($141bn) in the quarter ended December 31 after a return on investments of 3%.

US - Pension fund sponsors continue to view controlling funded status volatility as top priority for 2011.

US - Pacific Investment Management Co. and Cutwater Asset Management Corp. are advising investors that record fund withdrawals amid projections of widespread municipal defaults have created a buying opportunity.

US - The California Public Employees' Retirement System sued former Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. executives and underwriters alleging they hid Lehman's exposure to subprime loans when they sold the pension fund about $700m in bonds.

US - The number of new mandates placed by US institutional investors increased 16% in 2010 with a sharp increase seen in specialist mandates like real assets, commodities and other alternatives.

US - US real estate investment trusts are seeking a bigger piece of the more than $500bn of property investments from pensions, aiming to attract money from the private-equity funds traditionally favored by managers.

GLOBAL - Assets in the world's 13 largest pension markets hit a new high of $26trn at the end of 2010, up 12% during the year, new research by Towers Watson finds.

EUROPE - The CEE Stock Exchange Group, which includes bourses in Vienna, Budapest, Prague and Ljubljana, said trading volumes may drop this year in the Hungarian capital following the nationalisation of private pension funds.