United Kingdom

UK - The £483m Cardiff & Vale Glamorgan Pension Fund is looking at investing in private equity, according to a source at the fund.

UK - The increase to be awarded from April 6, 2002 to Guaranteed Minimum Pensions (GMPs) accrued from tax years 1988/9 has been confirmed as 1.7%.

UK - Nottinghamshire County Council has awarded Coller Capital and Pantheon Investments £7m apiece in private equity mandates.

UK - Mercer Human Resource Consulting is organising the following courses and seminars over the next few months:

UK - The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has published a guide - 'Helping your employees with their pension options' - aimed at employers that have set up or are setting up stakeholder or group personal pension schemes for their employees.

UK - The Boots pension fund has lowered its allocation to fixed rate bonds to increase its inflation linked assets by £200m, bringing the asset class up to 33% of scheme assets.

UK / NETHERLANDS - Franklin Templeton Investments has boosted its institutional marketing and client servicing division with four new appointments - Peter Escott, Gayda Humphries, Dennis Kwist and Adam Quaife.

UK - Consultancy firm Watson Wyatt is to give online access to its 2002 AVC survey for the first time.

UK - Jeremy Lodwick has been made joint UK chief investment officer at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, following Dominic Caldecott's decision to step back to focus on managing client money.

UK - Equitable Life is suing its auditor Ernst & Young (E&Y) for up to £2.6bn for its signing off on its accounts, claiming its accounts should have reflected the guaranteed annuity rate (GAR) liabilities that took the firm to edge of collapse.