Europe

UK - Legal & General saw pre-tax profits rise 10% last year, part of a set of results that led group chief executive David Prosser to claim that 2001 was "a year of substantial achievement".

FINLAND - Finnish insurer Sampo Group saw profits fall 21% since last year's demerger activity, but witnessed encouraging growth in its asset management businesses.

UK - Fund managers are predicting no increase in the supply of top-rated corporate bonds this year.

UK - The £2.3bn Boots defined benefit scheme in the UK is "well and truly open" despite some reports suggesting otherwise, according to John Ralfe, head of corporate finance at the Boots Company and a member of the Boots Pension Trustee Investment Committee....

UK - Paul Lowe has joined William M Mercer as a senior consultant, based in London.

FINLAND - The Bank of Finland (BoF) is looking for fund managers to run up to EUR250m in mandates for its staff pension fund.

UK / SWITZERLAND - Man Group has made a string of top level appointments at its asset management business, Man Investment Products, hiring Chris Chambers as its new chief executive officer and promoting David Huyton to chief investment officer.

UK - The appropriateness of actuarial consultants' advice has been called into question in recommending companies to set up hybrid schemes.

EUROPE - Resolution Property has secured a further £140m of backing from its long term institutional backer Warburg Pincus to fund property investments of up to £700m in the UK and mainland Europe.

UK - The increasingly financially strapped Church of England is in the middle of a consultation process about whether it should alter the structure of its £106m defined benefit pension fund.