United Kingdom

UK/US - Barclays Global Investors has appointed Aananth Madhavan to the new role of managing director and global head of trading, research.

UK - Mercer is launching a new executive pay evaluation tool to help schemes monitor whether they get value for money from top paid executives.

UK - Multi-managers' assets under management grew by over £270m during the second quarter, new figures show.

UK - Investor concerns of "rewards for failure" have led BHP Billiton, an Australian mining group, to release in detail the contract of its new chief executive, Chip Goodyear.

UK - Life and pensions business in the second quarter of 2003 plummeted by 20%, latest ABI figures show.

UK - Trustee exposure to maladministration claims has led to increasing fears over job security for pensions administration staff, recruitment consultants claim.

UK - Hornbuckle Mitchell Trustees has designed a SIPP that makes it "much easier" for advisers to use the product for income drawdown.

UK - Birmingham plastics firm Tufnol is holding talks with regulators and unions after using workers' pension contributions to pay off debts.

UK - Winterthur Life has seen first half sales of defined contribution products soar to £9m - a 169% increase on the same period last year.

UK/FRANCE - Trade unions are taking a pension row at UK chemical firm Rhodia to its parent company in France.