United Kingdom

UK - Increasing appetite for UK government inflation-linked debt by pension funds has caused Watson Wyatt to question whether the level of issuance can satisfy the demand.

UK - Schroders has been dropped by the £2bn Cheshire County Council pension fund from managing £550m in equity and bond briefs.

UK - F&C Asset Management has appointed Andrew Lake, from Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM), as a director of high yield.

UK - Sweden's Premium Pension Authority (PPM) is to introduce an automatic rebalancing model at the end of the year in a bid to help apathetic members control the risk levels within their portfolios.

UK - UK multi-manager IMS intends to unbundle the fee structure of the MM part of its operation, acquired earlier this year from Threadneedle, in order to increase transparency for clients.

UK - Demand for alternative investments from UK pension funds has surged nearly four-fold since 2003, according to Watson Wyatt.

UK - Pensions deficits at UK companies with the largest DB schemes reached an all-time high of £76bn in January 2006, with falls in long-dated gilts and bond yields blamed for the surge.

UK - The National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) has proposed self enrolment into around 20 defined contribution schemes as an alternative to the Pension Commission's National Pensions Saving Scheme (NPSS).

UK - Standard Life Investments has put the largest ever inflows of third party business of £9.8bn in part down to strong performance across its pension fund and mutual fund range.

UK - Mercer Investment Consulting has hired Danny Quant from Watson Wyatt as a principal based in London.