BAUGUR, the Icelandic retail group, has reached a deal with trustees House of Fraser's pension scheme over its £106m deficit.

TAX relief in pensions for higher rate taxpayers is under siege and beginning to look pretty vulnerable, warns Hargreaves Lansdown.

NORDICS - Rune Sanbeck, previously head of institutional business at Danske Capital in Denmark, has joined Barclays Global Investors (BGI) in the London office, Global Pensions can exclusively reveal.

GLOBAL - Fortis Investments increased its assets under management by 6% to e111bn in the first half of 2006, with e7.1bn in net asset inflows attributed to product performance and innovation.

HSBC Actuaries and Consultants has been appointed by Kingston Communications to provide pension administration services.

Liberal Democrats propose tax relief cuts; Aegon targets life and pensions acquisitions; Watson Wyatt profits double; UK equities weather terror scare

PROVIDER GE Life expects more than £120m to be invested in its self-invested personal pension offering after recording half yearly sales of £65m.

US - Industrial firm Blount International is set to freeze its defined benefit pension plan effective January 1, 2007 in a bid to save the company up to $23m in the next five years.

JAPAN - Fidelity is on the verge of making a string of new hires to enhance its client relationship capabilities in the Japanese defined benefit pensions market, at a time when many managers are scaling down their efforts in this segment.

HONG KONG - Hong Kong's Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) System recorded an annualised return of 6.99% over the five-year period to March 2006, however, people invested solely in money market funds reaped a return of just 0.6%.