Regions

GLOBAL - Figures from State Street reveal investor confidence declined to 89.6 in August, down 12.9 from July after a volatile month led to the most substantial decline since October 2008.

EUROPE - RBS expects Greece will experience a hard default this December in a move it says will cause "violent contagion" in global markets.

EUROPE/US - Hermes BPK Partners, the hedge fund investment arm of institutional manager Hermes, is to support and seed hedge fund businesses as the climate for start-ups in the $2trn industry re-emerges.

APG Group; BNY Mellon; Dreyfus Corporation; Northern Trust; TRS; QIC; AXA Investment Managers; Acadian Asset Management; BlackRock; Aon Risk Solutions; SSgA; Mercer; RBC Dexia Investor Services; Schroders

EUROPE: Mortality assumption calculations need a radical overhaul to give schemes and capital markets a better understanding of the factors that affect them, a report argues.

GLOBAL - Have you missed the biggest stories in pensions this week? Find out below, as we list the top 10 most popular stories on www.globalpensions.com over the past seven.

GLOBAL - A global consortium of pension asset managers including USS, APG and PGGM has convinced the world's largest property managers to disclose detailed data on the environmental performance of their funds for the first time.

US/ASIA - Acadian Asset Management Singapore has appointed Ho Yew Weng as director of institutional sales for Asia-ex Japan.

GIC; Neuberger Berman; PIMCO Australia; Mirae Asset Global Investments Group; AustralianSuper; SL Investment Management; FRTIB; FINANCIAL; EFRP; Mercer; Deutsche Asset Management

EUROPE - Scepticism some European allocators feel about the ability of ‘absolute return' funds to achieve their aims has been vindicated so far this month as almost eight in every 10 European funds in the sector lost money in the volatile first three...