Global

GLOBAL - CIBC Mellon has beefed up its third party fund custody business by snapping up the custody services of TD Bank Financial Group for an undisclosed sum.

DENMARK - The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has urged the new Danish government to rethink some of the reforms to its pension system, claiming that the attempt to simplify the system will prove counterproductive to efforts...

GLOBAL - It's early days yet but in International Pensions News' UK league table of recorded mandate wins and losses in 2002, SG Asset Management tops the rankings with one sizeable £400m global active balanced win from the pension fund of Hampshire County...

GLOBAL - State Street Global Advisors' (SSgA) chief investment officer Alan Brown is cautiously optimistic on the outlook for 2002, but has warned that while overall economies will recover this year, the same can not be said for equity markets.

GLOBAL - Sustained momentum in the private banking, retail, insurance, and asset management units of Swiss giant Credit Suisse Group, were not enough to stave off slumping performance in the firm's investment banking unit.

GLOBAL - American Express' fund management division was hit by a dramatic 95% fall in income during 2001, down to just $52m compared with the $1.03bn posted the previous year.

GLOBAL - Standard & Poor's, the provider of investable equity indices, announced yesterday that it has licensed Daiwa Bank to create a portfolio for a corporate pension fund based on the S&P/TOPIX 150 equity index, marking the first usage of the index...

GLOBAL: State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) is predicting a sharp recovery in financial markets in the second half of the year, claiming that there will be "no major debilitating force" on the horizon.

GLOBAL - Invesco's group chief economist John Greenwood has predicted a reviving world economy in Q2, 2002 on the heels of a recovering US economy.

GLOBAL - Merrill Lynch's woes continue with news that the firm's fund management operation, Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM), suffered a 61% drop in operating earnings for the fourth quarter of 2001.