Europe

UK / NETHERLANDS - Franklin Templeton Investments has boosted its institutional marketing and client servicing division with four new appointments - Peter Escott, Gayda Humphries, Dennis Kwist and Adam Quaife.

UK - Consultancy firm Watson Wyatt is to give online access to its 2002 AVC survey for the first time.

EUROPE - The European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (EVCA) has sent a paper to the European Union calling for a 7.5% maximum limit for pension funds looking to invest in private equity and venture capital.

UK - Jeremy Lodwick has been made joint UK chief investment officer at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, following Dominic Caldecott's decision to step back to focus on managing client money.

UK - Equitable Life is suing its auditor Ernst & Young (E&Y) for up to £2.6bn for its signing off on its accounts, claiming its accounts should have reflected the guaranteed annuity rate (GAR) liabilities that took the firm to edge of collapse.

UK - Women are still at the bottom end of the pensions and savings scale, according to a new report.

UK / EUROPE - Rothschild Asset Management has hired Baring Asset Management's (BAM) Ian Milton as its new assistant director and head of European institutional business development.

UK - Equitable Life, the beleaguered mutual insurer, has appointed Ron Bullen - the chairman of the Equitable Life Policyholders Action Group - to the board, along with two other new appointments.

UK - Hopes that occupational pension schemes would use stakeholder as replacement for AVCs have been dashed, providers claim.

EUROPE - The European Union is to step up efforts to fully integrate member states financial markets, claiming that it would act as a catalyst for economic growth.