United Kingdom

UK - The newsletter for trustees at Royal Dutch Shell has suggested contributions could be suspended to its £11.9bn UK pension fund for up to a year.

UK - Over 50% of the top 200 company pension schemes are back in surplus as a side effect of the summer's credit crunch, according to research from Aon.

UK -A total of 7% of UK adults (3.2m people) are relying on property investments to fund their retirement, leaving them dangerously exposed to fluctuations in the UK property market and interest rate movements, according to Baring Asset Management.

UK - UK defined benefit (DB) pension schemes could be among the "indirect casualties" of the fall out from the US sub prime crisis, following information released by the Bank of England.

UK - The Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) has appointed Russell Investments to carry out a commission recapture programme for its externally managed global portfolios.

UK - Trustees from smaller pension funds have been urged to conduct more scheme specific analysis on mortality risk.

UK - The Pensions Regulator has issued its first analysis of recovery plan data received under the Pensions Act. The data was supplied by schemes in deficit and covers their plans to return to surplus.

UK - Pension funds are increasingly drawn to using derivatives to hedge risk, according to a survey by Watson Wyatt.

UK - Pension fund buyout firms must win some business soon or risk imploding, according to a senior figure at the newly launched Occupational Pension Trust (OPT).

UK - Pension funds have been warned to expect levy notices in the post later this month as the PPF begins its annual round of tariff collection to raise compensation funds for failed schemes.