Regions

US - Actuaries for the California Public Employees' Retirement System are recommending trustees cut the discount rate by 25 basis points to 7.5%.

UK - Legal & General Investment Management has named Mark Zinkula as the group's new chief executive.

EUROPE - The European Union must forge stronger links with institutional investors to achieve its low carbon economy goals, the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change says.

EUROPE - European schemes have started to put strategies in action that deal with volatility by either bringing in returns or mitigating risks, but find there's still a way to go in educating board members about these strategies.

POLAND - Poland's government approved its plan to reduce transfers to private pension funds, a move that will trim the country's borrowing needs by about 190 billion zloty ($67bn) through 2020.

EUROPE - A warning late yesterday from France's Edhec Risk Institute about the dangers of banning naked short selling of sovereign debt using credit default swaps was in vain, as the European Parliament voted to push through such a veto.

US - US state pension funds saw their funding levels improve by four percentage points in 2010 to 69% while asset growth outpaced a growth in liabilities, according to a survey by Wilshire Associates.

GLOBAL - The hedge fund industry is expected to soar to $2.5trn by year-end on the back of strong returns and inflows, according to research published today by Deutsche Bank.

GLOBAL - Sovereign wealth funds worth $4trn in assets have resumed their moves into alternative assets in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, new research by Preqin showed.

GLOBAL/UK - Fidelity International has appointed Chris McNickle as global head of institutional.