Europe

UK - The Lothian Pension Fund (LPF) has launched a search for an investment manager to run a £380m property mandate.

UK - Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), the UK's second largest pension fund, has highlighted its commitment to alternative assets by hiring Fraser Booth and Geoffrey Geiger.

UK / FRANCE - Insight Investment has awarded distribution rights to Cohen Brothers Financial Services for the French institutional market in an expansion of Insight's European expansion strategy.

UK - Paternoster has released new research claiming that the true cost of London tube strikes could add £90bn to British pension scheme liabilities.

UK - Citigroup's acquisition of the sponsor company for the UK-based Thomson Regional Newspaper pension fund has been branded as a copy-cat opportunistic move by Pensions Corporation.

UK - Company directors receive more favourable pensions than their employees, according to data released from the Trades Union Congress (TUC).

UK - David Crum, the chief pensions officer for investments at Strathclyde Pension Fund, has left the organisation to join Hewitt Associates. He will join the investment team at Hewitt on 1 October.

EUROPE - Charlie McCreevy, EU commissioner for internal markets and services, has questioned the role played by credit rating agencies during the US sub-prime mortgage crisis.

Transport for London has refuted claims by the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) that by agreeing to a "full pensions rescue" this led to the suspension of a planned three-day strike in the capital.

FRANCE - The €31.8bn Fonds de Réserve pour les Retraites (FRR) has renewed State Street Global Advisors' (SSgA) currency mandate.