United Kingdom

UK - Strike action by professional staff of British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) has been called off after last minute negotiations reached a settlement, although there are no changes to the contentious pension reforms.

UK - Members of the airline pilots association are to hold a two day strike following the break down of pension negotiations between the GMB union and the British Airline Pilots' Association (BALPA).

UK - FTSE 100 companies' pension schemes had a net deficit of £41bn (US$80.1bn) at mid July this year compared to a £12bn (US$23.4bn) surplus in July 2007, a report by Lane Clark & Peacock LLP (LCP) has shown.

UK - Standard Life Investments' (SLI) third party funds under management (FUM) remained constant at £47.5bn (US$92.8bn) during the first half of 2008 and now represent 36% of total FUM.

UK - Aon consulting has questioned the capacity of the market to handle high levels of demand for buyout of defined benefit (DB) pension schemes, after it conducted a study revealing an 80% surge in buyout activity in the second quarter.

UK - Swiss Re has agreed to take over some 760,000 life insurance and pensions policies from Barclays Life for a cash sum of £753m (US$1.47bn).

UK - Legal & General has reported an increase in operating profits of 6% to £626m, first half year figures reveal, with its buyout business a strong factor in its success.

UK - Talks between beleaguered bank Northern Rock and the trustees of its pension scheme have broken down amid "fundamentally different" views of how the scheme should be invested.

UK - "Fictitious surpluses" to boost government funds from two of the UK's largest pension funds were calculated by a heavily criticised government actuary, an independent consultant claims.

UK - Hermes has announced the appointment of Glyn Jones as chairman of Hermes following the retirement of Richard Bernays, 65, who stepped down after three and a half years of service.