United Kingdom

UK - SRI investors Friends, Ivory & Sime has abstained from voting for a shareholder resolution calling on oil giant BP to be more transparent about its decision to drill in culturally and environmentally sensitive areas.

SCOTLAND - The near-£2bn Lothian Pension Fund is looking for a manager to handle a new global equities brief.

UK - The approximately £230m London Borough of Richmond Superannuation Scheme is raising its bonds allocation, according to Malcolm Smith, principal accountant at the fund.

UK/GLOBAL - As part of its refocusing plans, London-based Rothschild Asset Management is to hive off its Australian arm.

UK - Rothschild Asset Management has launched a UK non-government bond fund aimed at institutional clients.

UK - The £3.65bn Diageo Pension Scheme has successfully opened up its defined benefit plan to temporary, casual and fixed-term employees.

UK - The Association of Consulting Actuaries (ACA) has welcomed the Government's consultation paper on modernising annuities, but said that the public should recognise that the proposed death benefit option should come at "a price".

UK - Pension scheme deficits could be slashed dramatically if FRS17 assumptions were based on current rather than projected salaries, Morgan Stanley claims.

UK - Occupational pension provision needed a boost from Gordon Brown in the Budget but instead, out of view, it received yet another kick in the teeth, according to consulting actuaries Lane Clark & Peacock (LCP).

UK - Investec Asset Management is going all out to boost its pension fund business, according to newly appointed global head of institutional business, Mark Samuelson.