Europe

UK - State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) - the investment management arm of State Street Corporation - has hired two new senior consultant relationship managers covering the UK and Europe.

UK - London-based Morley Fund Management has hired Nick Alford as the firm's new European chief operating officer as part of the firm's restructuring plans.

UK/GERMANY - Deutsche Asset Management (DeAM) has appointed Andreas Varnavides as head of European institutional sales, based in London and Frankfurt.

UK - One agm is worthy of note in the week starting December 10, according to corporate governance specialists Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS).

UK - The first of the expert witnesses to take the stand at the High Court yesterday in the MLIM/Unilever case described the performance of the Unilever UK equity portfolio as "among the worst" he had ever seen.

UK - The Liberty Ermitage Group has appointed Mark Hucker as group executive director, infrastructure responsible for all aspects of operations, finance and compliance, reporting to CEO Ron Mitchell.

UK - Local authority pension funds face greater scrutiny after new legislation compels them to abide by FRS17 accounting rules.

UK - The Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF) has scrutinised the labour codes adopted by the nine retail groups in the FTSE100 in order to identify which are the most comprehensive and which are weakest.

UK - Three FTSE 100 companies with a combined pension fund valuation of more than £14.5bn are to axe final salary provision to new members.

UK - Boots' pension scheme's mass exodus to corporate bonds is unlikely to set the trend for the UK pensions industry, according to giant pensions custodian Northern Trust and the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF).