Europe

UK - State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) has hired Mahmoud El-Shaer as a credit portfolio manager, based in London.

UK - Radical proposals for pension reform have been outlined by the National Association of Pension Funds in a last ditch attempt to influence impending government legislation.

UK - GE Life has awarded the total mandate for the £850m equity element of the GE Pensions With Profits Fund to State Street Global Advisors.

EUROPE - Readers of IPN's sister publication Global Pensions have been urged by the rapporteur of the Pensions Directive to lobby their governments to back amendments to it recommended by the European Parliament.

UK - Pension funds will invest half their assets in bonds by 2020 as they battle to reduce risk levels, Watson Wyatt predicts.

UK - Defined contribution schemes can match and, in some cases, even better final salary plans, Hermes Pensions Management chief executive Tony Watson claims.

UK - Annual real estate returns averaged 12.2% over the five years to 2001 against 10.6% for large cap stocks, figures from property specialist LaSalle Investment Management show.

UK - Barnett Waddingham is holding four seminars on manager of managers' investment strategies and how trustees can use them to manage pension scheme risk.

US/UK - Christi Gujral has been made chief operating officer for the global division of US fund manager Janus International .

UK - Aberdeen Asset Management is having to defer its directors' bonuses in a bid to stave off investor fury after four of its 19 split-capital funds collapsed.