Asia

JAPAN - Pension funds which snapped up top-notch office buildings in downtown Tokyo are benefiting from booming office prices on the back of a resurgence of interest in property investment by Japanese investors.

JAPAN - Noboru Terada, the Japanese Government Pension Investment Fund's executive investment officer is unlikely to continue in his post following reforms to the world's biggest pension fund.

ASIA - Asian countries excluding Japan will continue to see strong economic growth, resulting in "robust corporate profitability", industry experts have predicted.

SINGAPORE - Watson Wyatt, the human resource and financial management consulting firm, has strengthened its Asia-Pacific presence through six appointments, affirming its position on developing its global business units.

JAPAN/NETHERLANDS - ABP, the pension scheme for the Dutch civil service, has appointed Hermes to help undertake its share ownership responsibilities for its equity investments in Japan.

SINGAPORE - The creation of the private pension plans (PPPs) was originally viewed as a means of boosting Singapore's efforts to attract fund managers to the city-state as part of a wider effort to make it a regional financial hub to compete with Hong...

ASIA-PACIFIC - Pensions markets in the Asia-Pacific region are set too grow by from e1.1trn to e2.9trn by 2015, according to new research from Allianz Global Investors.

JAPAN - Wilshire Associates and Japanese asset management firm Daiwa SB Investments are launching a hedge fund of funds in Japan aimed at large institutional investors including pension funds, insurance companies and banks.

INDIA - The systematic reform of India's pension system represents the "most ambitious" effort in the South Asian region to date, according to the World Bank.

JAPAN - Japan's Pension Fund Association (PFA) is preparing to sue Seibu Railway in a bid to seek compensation for losses incurred during 2004, when the rail group was thrown out of the Tokyo Stock Exchange for falsifying financial statements.