US - State and public pension funds ended 2008 with an aggregate deficit of US$237bn, latest Wilshire Associates data reveals.

The department for work and pension hopes to relax section 75 employer debt regulations later in this year, pensions minister Rosie Winterton says.

EUROPE - Forced retirement at 65 can be justified under European law only if it is a "proportionate" means of achieving a legitimate employment policy, European judges have ruled.

US - The administrative functions of the Indiana Public Employees Retirement Fund (PERF) and the Indiana Teachers' Retirement Fund (TRF) could be combined in a bid to cut costs.

US -USI Consulting Group has agreed to pay $470,000 to resolve allegations it accepted concealed compensation from insurers for pensions business, the Connecticut attorney general office has revealed.

UK - Listed private equity fund of funds SVG Capital has posted a decline in net assets per share of 64.3%, in what the company's chairman Nicholas Ferguson called "the most difficult period in the company's history".

The Pension Protection Fund has appointed a new chief investment officer to oversee its investment portfolio, which is currently worth more than £3bn.

Listed private equity fund of funds SVG Capital has posted a decline in net assets per share of 64.3%, in what the company's chairman Nicholas Ferguson called "the most difficult period in the company's history".

NORWAY - Norway's domestically invested pension fund lost over 25% during 2008 in what it termed an "historically turbulent and challenging year".

US- Matthew Scanlan, former head of the Americas institutional business at Barclays Global Investors, has left the firm to become president and chief executive officer at Renaissance Institutional Management (RIM).