United Kingdom

UK - Sascha Hirsch has joined Baring Asset Management as an investment manager in the UK and European specialist investment team.

UK - Smaller schemes are threatening to quit the National Association of Pension Funds and set up a breakaway group unless they get better representation.

UK - Specialist recruitment consultancy Alexander Lloyd has opened a human resources division.

UK - Insight Investment has launched a triple-A sterling money market fund aimed at institutional investors.

UK - Union leaders have called a one-day strike at Peugeot's Ryton plant over pay and pension issues.

UK - The government will use the select committee on pensions to push compulsion through by the back door, senior Whitehall sources have revealed.

UK - Pension scheme deficits at Britain's biggest companies have soared in the past year from £200m to £85bn, new research shows.

UK - A court ruling has paved the way for 10 Equitable Life claimants' cases to go to trial as a group.

UK - City watchdogs have relaxed rules to ease pressure on life assures. The Financial Services Authority says life assurers will no longer be forced to sell equities in a bid to meet the regulatory minimum margin (RMM).

UK - Odeon, the UK's largest cinema chain, is to be put up for sale by private equity group Cinven, with a price tag of up to £450m.