Regions

GLOBAL - Institutional investors are shying away from emerging markets and buying into consumer staples and high yielding sectors, said a report released by State Street Global Markets.

CANADA - The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec was part of a consortium that purchased three hotel properties from the Hilton Hotel Corporation for an undisclosed fee.

CZECH REPUBLIC - The government is set to spend a further CZK 16.9bn (e595m) on pensions as of next year, it was announced yesterday.

EUROPE - Hewitt Associates is eyeing further expansion into European emerging markets, after it formed an alliance with IDE Consulting to offer HR consulting and actuarial services in Turkey.

ASIA - The Abu Dhabi Pensions & Benefits Retirement Fund has selected Northern Trust as its first global custodian.

GLOBAL - Lehman Brothers said they had launched two swap indices that would "have applications in the arena of liability driven investing for pension and insurance companies".

GLOBAL - Marsh & McLennan could sell its subsidiary Putnam Investments after the insurance broker announced it would conduct a market check "to determine the value others would put on Putnam".

GLOBAL - F&C Asset Management has disputed claims by think tank CREATE that managers had overestimated pension fund demand for products like liability driven investments (LDI) and hedge funds.

US - Crédit Agricole Structured Asset Management (CASAM) has aqcuired Ursa Capital - the holding company of two US-based investment advisers specialising in alternative managed accounts - in a deal worth US$57m.

GLOBAL - Crédit Agricole's Christian Dargnat has been appointed CIO at BNP Paribas Asset Management.