Europe

NETHERLANDS/UK - Dutch pension fund and asset manager PGGM has allocated €75m (US$89.8m) to a UK property fund run by Standard Life.

EUROPE - The number of investors considering climate change policies as key to manager selection has doubled since 2007, but the actual integration of these policies into investment mandates has failed to take off, a report by the Institutional Investors...

EUROPE - M&G has launched a UCITS III version of a global macro investment strategy in a bid to target institutional investors.

EUROPE - Pension funds are continuing to diversify into riskier assets, with interest in private markets likely to increase in the short to mid-term, bfinance said.

GERMANY/ EUROPE - The European Commission has referred Germany to the European Court of Justice for imposing tax rules that result in higher taxes on dividends paid to foreign pension funds holding stakes in German companies.

UK - J.P. Morgan global head of transition management (TM) John Minderides has left the firm. Meanwhile, BlackRock has lost one senior TM member, and the European co-head has gone on sabbatical.

GLOBAL/UK - Emerging market debt fundamentals are attractive for pension funds seeking portfolio growth and diversification, J.P. Morgan Asset Management said.

EUROPE/ITALY - The European Commission has issued a new request for Italy to move swiftly to equalise the retirement age for men and women.

EUROPE - The European Commission has launched a public consultation on a Green Paper looking at reforming corporate governance in financial institutions.

EUROPE - Investments into long term UCITS excluding money market funds surged in the first quarter of 2010 to €87bn (US$106.1bn) in net inflows, the first time such levels had been reached since Q1 2006, according to new figures from the European Fund...