Europe

FRANCE - Aberdeen Property Investors and L'Etoile Properties developed property asset management services for the French property market, it was announced today.

NORWAY - The Norwegian Government Pension Fund may consider moving into private equity and real estate following its investment strategy review.

UK - Hazel Pitchers is to join Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM) as head of institutional marketing for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

CANADA - The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec was part of a consortium that purchased three hotel properties from the Hilton Hotel Corporation for an undisclosed fee.

UK - ABN AMRO Asset Management has appointed Deutsche Asset Management's Paul Gray as senior portfolio manager to handle the day to day management responsibilities in its currency team.

UK - The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) has contracted Credit Suisse to create a bespoke credit portfolio model and also Moody's KMV to provide correlation data.

UK - Running personal accounts with dynamic investment options at a cost of 0.3% of funds under management - as suggested by the Turner report on pensions - was "unrealistic", according to experts in the industry.

UK - An independent commission has been created by the rail unions and employers to find "alternative means of long-term pension provision" for the £17bn railways pension scheme.

CZECH REPUBLIC - The government is set to spend a further CZK 16.9bn (e595m) on pensions as of next year, it was announced yesterday.

EUROPE - Hewitt Associates is eyeing further expansion into European emerging markets, after it formed an alliance with IDE Consulting to offer HR consulting and actuarial services in Turkey.