North America

AUSTRALIA - Officials at the Australian Future Fund are in preliminary discussions with two Canadian pension plans about partnering up to acquire Australia's largest toll-road provider Transurban Group.

US/EUROPE - Towers Perrin and Watson Wyatt have been granted conditional clearance to proceed with their merger to form Towers Watson.

GLOBAL - The majority of institutional investors around the world will not renew commitments to existing private equity managers in 2010, a survey by Coller Capital revealed.

CANADA - Railroad operator Canadian Pacific Railway plans to make a voluntary contribution of C$500m (US$477.34m) to its defined benefit plan, the firm said.

CANADA - Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec has completed a US$5bn debt offering in what it called the largest non-government guaranteed offering by a Canadian issuer in US dollars.

CANADA - Canadian defined benefit (DB) pension funds will struggle to meet future obligations to members, according to a survey by RBC Dexia Investor Services.

US - The American International Group (AIG) has renamed its asset management and investment advisory group, which is currently being spun off, PineBridge Investments.

CANADA - Canada's three largest pension funds have endorsed a new action plan to help Toronto evolve into a global hub for the retirement financial sector.

GLOBAL - More than half of pension funds in Europe and the Americas have implemented some sort of liability driven investment (LDI) strategy in their portfolios, a poll by fiduciary manager SEI found.

US - Institutional investors in the US could move some US$300bn to $500bn from US large-cap strategies in the next three to five years, a survey by Bank of America Merrill Lynch showed.