Europe

ITALY - Italian airline Alitalia has appointed employee benefits firm Black Mountain to provide its actuarial, consulting and administration services for its UK pension scheme.

UK - The UK's Occupational Pensions Regulatory Authority (OPRA) is losing chief executive Caroline Instance to the Institute of Actuaries.

UK - The approximately £5.6bn Greater Manchester Pension Fund is tendering for a strategic adviser to it property investments.

UK - Friends Ivory & Sime Private Equity has appointed Kevin Whittle as portfolio director, portfolio management.

UK - The third major survey of pension trends in smaller firms, conducted by the Association of Consulting Actuaries (ACA), has highlighted evidence of continued low pension contributions into money purchase schemes that will spell misery for many pensioners...

UK - Alistair Lennard made mistakes of both timing and scale in constructing the UK equity portion of the Unilever portfolio according to Paul Harwood.

UK - The £350m BBA Group Pension Fund has appointed ABN Amro Mellon as its custodian.

UK - George Walker, formerly of Friends Ivory & Sime (FIS), has joined Standard Life Investments (SLI) as its new head of UK business development for its pension products.

UK - Small companies are rushing to close their defined benefit schemes in response to rising management time and poor investment returns, consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers claims.

UK - The Universities Superannuation Scheme - the fourth largest pension fund in the UK - lost nearly £2bn in the year to March 2001.