Regions

GLOBAL - Investors in Australia, the UK and Sweden ranked highest in a new "Environmental Real Estate Index" developed on the back of a global environmental survey commissioned by three large European pension funds.

UK/US - Two US investment management firms have decided to launch target date funds in an assault on the UK DC market, Global Pensions has learned.

GLOBAL - Worldwide investment fund assets increased 6.2% in the third quarter of 2009, reaching €15.3trn (US$21.5trn) at the end of September 2009, latest figures from the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) have revealed.

GLOBAL - BlackRock's net new business totalled US$82bn in the fourth quarter of 2009, with pension funds and other institutional investors accounting for 60% of it.

GLOBAL - Nissan Motors has appointed Mercer as global retirement consultant in a bid to strengthen its pensions governance structures.

US - Russell Investments has tapped two Barclays Global Investors executives formerly tasked with growing its ETF arm iShares to help Russell build out products related to the exchange traded funds business.

GLOBAL - High fees are dampening the demand for opportunistic real estate investment, Towers Watson warned.

GLOBAL - The rebound in market liquidity since the credit crunch has spelled good news for some pension funds locked into hedge funds during the crisis, as some prominent funds have returned cash to investors sometimes years earlier than expected.

GLOBAL - Transparency and liquidity risk have overtaken poor performance as the top concerns for institutional investors with hedge fund allocations, research shows.

US - Staff at the California State Teachers Retirement System want to expand the range of active versus passive management they can use in the global equity portfolio, stating the current policy is too restrictive.