United Kingdom

UK - Mark Green has left MBNA Europe Bank to join Mercer Human Resource Consulting as European head of benefits outsourcing.

UK - Drinks firm Diageo is to pump £100m into its ailing pension system as part of a seven-year plan to rid its £653m deficit.

UK - Robert Middleton will replace Ron Amy as chief executive of Aon Consulting in the UK, who will now focus on providing global benefit services to multinational organisations.

UK - Only one in five pension managers and trustees are concerned about the potential impact of the National Pensions Savings Scheme (NPSS) on occupational pensions, a survey by Punter Southall has found.

UK - Hewitt Associates has appointed Lorraine Harper of KPMG to lead and coordinate is pension scheme governance service within the firm's UK retirement practice.

UK - Talk of a looming pensions black hole in the UK has been branded scaremongering by leading economist and author Phil Mullan.

UK - Consultant Barnett Waddingham has been appointed as actuary and investment consultant to the £960m Somerset County Council pension fund.

UK - Dominique Carrel-Billiard, currently senior vice president in charge of business support and development for the asset management arm, is to become CEO of AXA Investment Managers (AXA IM) in June 2006.

UK - Watson Wyatt has proposed a radical shift in the asset allocation for UK defined contribution benefit (DC) schemes, including a far greater emphasis on uncorrelated alternatives such as infrastructure, private equity and property.

UK - Rod Aldridge, chairman of Capita, has decided to step down over his decision to lend £1m to the Labour party, claiming speculation that it resulted in the group winning government contracts were "spurious". Capita is the parent company of Capita...