Europe

UK - About one third of employers may not have met the deadline to set up a stakeholder pension scheme incurring hefty fines, according to the Association of British Insurers (ABI).

UK - Edinburgh Fund Managers is looking for a new chief investment officer (CIO), following the departure of Mike Balfour by mutual consent.

UK - The State pay-as-you-go pension system is a euphemism for pray-as-you-pay, according to a free market, libertarian critique of UK State pension policy due to be published in the December 2001 issue of Economic Affairs.

UK - Friends Ivory & Sime (FIS) has announced four changes to its private equity arm.

UK -Gissings has been appointed by London taxi manufacturer Manganese Bronze to provide full services to its defined benefit and defined contribution pension plans.

UK - A more realistic and less stringent funding standard is the best alternative to the minimum funding requirement, delegates at MSM's Investment Directions conference was told.

SPAIN - Legg Mason Wood Walker Incorporated has opened its first Spanish institutional equity sales office, based in Madrid.

UK - Nick Watts, European head of investment consulting at Watson Wyatt, has said the Government had made some positive changes to the original Myners' principles.

UK - Fund managers Philips & Drew and Capital International have been appointed to run mandates worth approximately £150m each, from the £1.2bn Devon County Council Pension Fund.

UK - Baring Asset Management has appointed Simon Corker as a director of the UK institutional sales team.