Regions

GLOBAL - Investments in emerging market debt will help pension funds balance the damage rising oil prices will have on conventional investments, a leading fund manager claims.

GLOBAL- Talks between Standard & Poor's (S&P) and Schroder Salomon Smith Barney (SSSB) over merging the firms' global index businesses are near to completion, according to a source at Citigroup.

UK/EUROPE - Inalytics, the transaction cost measurement company, has strengthened its offering to UK and European asset managers with a string of new hires.

GLOBAL - European equity values are suffering from a lack of positive corporate and economic news and the possibility of war in Iraq, according to Govett Investments.

GLOBAL - Hedge funds have returned 1.34% during January, down slightly from the 1.36% return posted in December, according to global indices provider MSCI.

EU/UK - MEPs have climbed down over changes to a draft EU pensions directive which threatened to scrap tax free lump sum retirement pay-outs in the UK.

EUROPE - Multi-manager Permal, owned by French group Worms & Cie, is offering institutions the opportunity to invest in the Permal Global High Yield Holdings fund, following demand from investors for a more substantial fixed-income product.

SOUTH AFRICA - Goldman Sachs Asset Management said it has been awarded three separate sub-advisory mandates by South Africa's RMB Asset Management over the past 15 months

GLOBAL - In both their internal business management and external brokerage relationships, Asia (ex-Japan)-based institutions are insisting upon increasingly high standards.

EUROPE - AXA Rosenberg Investment Management's equity alpha funds, the Dublin-based range of 15 specialist equity UCITS, have scooped eight awards at the Standard & Poor's European Fund Awards 2003.