Europe

UK - The Universities Superannuation Scheme has diversified its property allocation in a deal with Henderson Global Investors' UK Retail Warehouse Fund.

US/EUROPE - Towers Perrin and Watson Wyatt have been granted conditional clearance to proceed with their merger to form Towers Watson.

UK - Nearly two-thirds of pension managers believe personal accounts will not go ahead in their current form.

GLOBAL - The majority of institutional investors around the world will not renew commitments to existing private equity managers in 2010, a survey by Coller Capital revealed.

Sebastian Cheek asks why reform to the local government pension scheme is needed and how it can be achieved

UK - The National Association of Pension Funds has called on the government to skew gilt issuance towards long-dated and index-linked gilts.

EUROPE - The investment fund market in Europe grew by 7.2% in the third quarter and had €6.8trn (US$10.3trn) under management at the end of September, the latest quarterly data by the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) revealed.

UK - Ofcom has published a consultation on how it accounts for BT's pension costs when setting regulated wholesale charges for telecommunications services.

EUROPE - The European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) has hired consultant McKinsey to formulate proposals aimed at the European Commission on fund distribution and long-term savings.

UK - The Information Commissioner's Office has ruled Verity Trustees, the independent trustees for The Pensions Trust, breached the Data Protection Act when unencrypted personal data of 110,000 scheme members was stolen from its software provider.