Europe

UK - Chemicals manufacturer Millennium has dropped Towers Perrin as consultant to its £50m pension fund, replacing it with Mercer Investment Consulting.

UK - According to new research commissioned by Hewitt Bacon & Woodrow, a surprisingly high number of people in the UK (57%) claim that they are not concerned about having insufficient income in retirement.

UK - Capital Cranfield Trustees will resign from its role in the wind-up of the Brand New Carpet Company scheme unless OPRA reverses its policy on funding outstanding costs.

UK - Poor investor education is one of the biggest problems in the current pensions crisis, and the slide from final salary to money purchase schemes will only make matters worse, says Mercer Human Resource Consulting.

UK - Property investments have outperformed equities over the past decade, commercial property adviser Insignia's Richard Ellis claims.

UK - Fidelity Pensions Management and UBS Asset Management are both under pressure at the £368m London Borough of Ealing Pension Fund as the regional scheme carries out an investment review.

UK - Pensioners with income drawdown plans should not sell poorly performing equity investments as it will lock in any loss of value, warns the Drawdown Bureau.

UK - Consulting actuaries Punter Southall, part of Sanlam Financial Services, has hired Richard Garmon-Jones as group compliance director.

UK - Scottish Widows has increased its hold on the stakeholder market winning 1000 new company clients during the first half of the year.

UK - Scottish Mutual is to offer six new funds for its group personal pension product.