Investment

IRELAND - Allied Irish Banks (AIB) has invested €12m ($16m) of pension scheme assets into a special purpose vehicle set up to recover toxic debt.

Expectations for average total property returns are falling sharply as economic uncertainty, reduced access to financing and increased supply take their toll, a bfinance survey reveals.

Nearly half of all European pension funds are imprecisely modelling their liability hedging portfolios, a new survey by EDHEC-Risk Institute finds.

Finance directors should shift de-risking up the boardroom agenda if they think it is important to the future of the company, MetLife says.

IRELAND - Ireland's defined-benefit pension schemes risk closure because they cannot meet the "draconian" minimum funding standard set by the Pensions Board, employers claim.

Iain Lindsay, co-head, global lead portfolio management, fixed income and currency at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, looks at how flexible investment strategies can improve risk management and income generation

Scheme allocation to alternatives will rise to more than a third on average over the next two to three years as funds shy away from equities, J.P. Morgan Asset Management research shows.

UK - The Pensions Ombudsman and the Pensions Protection Fund Ombudsman could be merged with The Pensions Regulator, a leaked Cabinet Office document suggests.

Schroders has launched a specialist investment service for trustees of closed defined benefit schemes.

The hunt for scale and lower costs through mergers and acquisitions is set to be an industry-changing trend over the next five years, State Street says.