United Kingdom

UK - Four organisations that have banded together to form a new People's Pensions Coalitiion have today called for the establishment of a new independent body to safeguard the future of pensions and ensure policy continuity.

UK - The £3.2bn Merseyside Pension Fund has tendered for an actuary to provide actuarial and investment advice on the back of the completion of its current contract with Mercer Investment Consulting.

UK - Julius Baer has announced it will launch a new single manager convertible and high yield hedge fund on July 1.

UK - The Liberal Democrats have called for cross-party consensus and the introduction of an Independent Pensions Authority to make pensions more "politician proof".

UK - The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has demanded the government introduce legislation forcing fund managers to disclose how they are voting on company AGM decisions.

UK - Railpen Investments, the company responsible for the management of the £15bn pension scheme for the UK rail industry, has appointed Griff Williams as senior investment manager.

UK - Schroders has launched a Sterling Broad Market Bond Fund to complement it range of UK institutional fixed income funds.

UK - Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM) has extended its range of products for institutional pooled fund clients with the launch of a US relative value fund.

UK - Deutsche has appointed Timothy Sweeting as head of distribution, Europe and the Middle East, for DB Absolute Return Strategies (DB ARS), the global hedge fund management unit of Deutsche Asset Management (DeAM).

UK - PricewaterhouseCoopers has called on the government to pour £1000 a year in National Insurance revenues into a new savings account, coupled with improvements to the Basic State Pension, as a solution to the UK pension crisis.