United Kingdom

UK - State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) has appointed Yacine Bechikh to its hedge fund strategies team.

UK - Pensions experts in the UK are expecting the Pensions Commission, headed up by Adair Turner, to recommend a form of compulsion in its November report.

UK - UK pension plan managers are far more wary of risk than their US counterparts, according to research from Aon Consulting.

UK - RREEF UK has been appointed by the London Borough of Newham to invest up to £40m over the next three years in a strategy to almost double the authority's allocation to property within its pension fund.

UK - Public services trade union UNISON will actively oppose calls for reforming the public sector retirement age at the Trades Union Congress conference held in Brighton this week.

UK - UK pension funds have posted average second-quarter returns of 5.1%, making Q2 the ninth straight quarter of positive returns.

UK - Gartmore has added Gerald Campbell and Jeffrey Kerrigan to the quant team run by Mike Gleason.

UK - Directors at the UK's top 100 companies enjoy pensions worth up to 45 times more than most staff pensions.

UK - Syndicate Asset Management (SAM), an investment management company launched to consolidate smaller asset managers, has announced its intention to float.

UK - Threadneedle Investments has appointed Madeline Forrester as head of UK institutional business.