Europe

UK - Employee benefits consultants Gissings has appointed Alec Ure as senior adviser with its technical team.

UK - The UK pensions market has adopted a pace of change more radical than that of any other major institutional market in the past 30 years, according to Rodger Smith, consultant at Greenwich Associates.

UK - The £650m Building & Civil Engineering Benefits Scheme (B&CE) has appointed Barclays Global Investors (BGI) to passively manage £150m worth of assets. The additional assets, which will be invested in equities and bonds,...

UK - An "uncomfortable" Carol Galley, co-chairman of Merrill Lynch Investment Mangers in London, faced more tough questions on Tuesday as she took the witness stand for second time in the landmark Unilever versus Merrill case.

UK - State Street Corporation has been appointed by London based investment house Quilter Fund Management to provide custody and fund accounting to the £5bn firm.

UK - Aegon Asset Management UK has appointed Colin McLatchie as its new managing director (MD), with effect from January 1, 2002.

UK - Friends Ivory & Sime Private Equity, a unit of investment house Friends Ivory & Sime, has appointed Liz Jones as assistant director of new investments.

UK - Co-chairman of Merrill Lynch Investment Managers Carol Galley made her long awaited appearance in the witness box on Monday as MLIM's first defendant.

UK - Punter Southall Financial Management (PSFM), the financial management arm of consulting actuaries Punter Southall & Co, has been appointed by A Jones & Sons to set up its stakeholder pension scheme.

EUROPE - Peter Dencik, institutional head at Singer & Friedlander Investment Management (SFIM), has warned that the European pensions directive is unlikely to take shape in the next few years despite urgent calls to push the matter forward.