Regions

GLOBAL - Most industrialised nations - in particular Italy, Germany and Japan - feel they are not well prepared to deal with the potential implications of global ageing, an international opinion poll has found.

SOUTH AFRICA - Two mining funds based in South Africa have awarded Investec Asset Management global bond mandates totalling US$86m.

EUROPE - More than a third of continental European pension funds are still underfunded despite the market recovery of 2003 and hefty contributions made by many corporate plan sponsors to their pension plans last year, according to new research by Greenwich...

GLOBAL - State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) has launched a new investment strategy targeted at institutional investors offering "more efficient" exposure to the large-cap Australian equities market.

EUROPE - The newly merged £118bn pan-European fund manager F&C Asset Management has announced an outsourcing agreement with Mellon Financial Corporation. As a result, JP Morgan will lose the business it held through a similar agreement with ISIS before...

EUROPE - Britannic Asset Management have made two additions to its international business development team with the appointment of Peter Wolger and Asa Norrie as European business development managers.

GLOBAL - Real estate adviser Jones Lang LaSalle has appointed Sheila A. Penrose as global chair, effective January 1,2005.

UK - The £195.1m Independent Television News Ltd (ITN) Pension Scheme has dropped incumbent investment consultant Watson Wyatt for Aon Consulting, representing the firm's second mandate loss to Aon in recent months.

EUROPE - The Paris-based Committee of European Securities Regulators' (CESR) investigations into the possibility of mis-practices such as late trading or market timing in the European investment fund industry has revealed organisational weaknesses in...

GLOBAL - Allowing people to choose their own retirement fund is dangerous in a system where participants are not well informed, State Street Global Advisors group CIO Alan Brown argues.