Regions

EUROPE - A collective of European pension funds and fund managers - which includes PGGM and the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) - has commended 10 brokers on their consideration of extra-financial issues as part of their research.

GLOBAL - Mercer Human Resources Consulting has hived off its fund of managers business into a separate division called Mercer Global Investments in a bid to "manage" potential conflicts of interest.

EUROPE - Goldman Sachs Asset Management saw its European institutional assets under management climb 43% in 2004 to hit e44bn by year-end.

GLOBAL - International small-cap companies were the driving force behind strong gains for developed world equity markets in 2004, says ratings agency Standard & Poor's (S&P).

EUROPE - Almost half of European fund managers expect greater cost disclosure to lead to lower commissions, according to Mercer's pan-European Fearless Forecast survey.

GLOBAL - World equity markets are expected to slowdown but will post "reasonably strong" returns for 2005, with global managers expecting the MSCI World Index to return 7.7% in 2005, down from 2004's 20.2%.

EUROPE - Capita has signed a new £4m deal with Linedata Services for Icon, the provider's back-office fund management and administration solution.

GLOBAL - The best returns in 2005 are likely to come from Hong Kong followed by Singapore and Australia, according to Baring Asset Management's outlook report for global markets and the economy in 2005.

MOLDOVA- The Republic of Moldova has improved its fiscal transparency, but there is no information on the state's unfunded pension liabilities, according to a report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

GUERNSEY - The number of funds serviced in Guernsey has grown by 15.5% during the last year with the total rising to 1,133 funds and subfunds, new research from Fitzrovia International has revealed.