Regions

FRANCE - Crédit Agricole Asset Management (CAAM) increased its assets under management by 11.6% to end 2006 at €534.8bn.

FRANCE - The French Pension Reserve Fund (FRR) has tendered one stand-by and five asset management mandates worth €5.8bn, or 18.5% of the portfolio.

GLOBAL - Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM) has appointed James Dilworth business head for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

CYPRUS - The Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) has reached a tentative out-of-court deal with a stockbroker charged with embezzling CYP£8m (US$18.1m) from the company's pension fund.

UK - European chief executive of BGI's ETF programme iShares, Chris Sutton, has resigned after 14 years at the helm.

SRI LANKA - Sri Lanka's private sector employees pension fund (EPF) is planning to start day trading with a small portfolio.

UK - Pension funds worth an estimated £1.7trn have been contacted by members supporting a campaign to stop a pharmaceutical company blocking poor counties' access to affordable medicines.

UK - The row over pension fund investment in private equity took another turn today as the GMB union national secretary condemed the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association's (BVCA) new working group as "too little, too late".

GLOBAL - Emerging markets was the best performing funds of hedge funds strategy in 2006 with a return of 18.85%, an EDHEC report has found.

GLOBAL - Schroders Asset Management saw its institutional funds under management fall £1.3bn to £77.4bn in 2006, as institutional outflows rose.