Regions

GLOBAL - Notwithstanding market concerns about pricing power, the US corporate sector should deliver a robust increase in profits in 2002, according to Keith Wade, Schroders' chief economist.

EUROPE - Friends of the Earth has slammed MEPs on the European Parliament's industry committee for rejecting a proposal forcing EU firms to report on their social and environmental performance.

GLOBAL - Consultants Cerulli Associates has predicted that the fund management market will begin to fragment from 2003 onwards, reversing what the firm called a "frenzy of M&A activity".

EUROPE - Zurich, the troubled financial services group, is pulling out of four East European markets and is selling the businesses to Generali Group.

EUROPE - The Council of Europe is planning to restructure its pension scheme, currently operating as pay-as-you-go with individual member states responsible for making good any shortfall.

EUROPE - The European Federation for Retirement Provision (EFRP) is set to admit the French institutional fund organisation, the Centre Technique des Institutions de Prevoyance (CTIP) into its ranks.

GLOBAL - Philip Purcell, chairman and chief executive officer of Morgan Stanley, is pleased with the firm's 2002 first quarter results, despite seeing net income drop 21% compared to the previous year.

GLOBAL - Deutsche Bank, the German financial services giant, is facing a bill of more than EUR3.5bn from its retirement plans as its benefit obligations rocket ahead of its pension assets.

EUROPE - The ‘euro changeover' effect seems to have had a noticeable impact only on motor vehicle sales, according to CDC IXIS's latest market analysis.

UK/EUROPE - Alan Pickering, head of the UK pensions simplification review and chairman of the European Federation for Retirement Provision (EFRP), hopes his review will result in a new UK pensions Act "that will encompass all the private pensions legislation...