News

US - The California Public Employees' Retirement System sued former Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. executives and underwriters alleging they hid Lehman's exposure to subprime loans when they sold the pension fund about $700m in bonds.

Last chance to claim £3,000 of lost pension years; Value of global pension funds hits record high at £16trn, study shows; Average woman aged 56 has just £9,100 pension pot; Pension funds Britain still clings to the cult of the equity

US - The number of new mandates placed by US institutional investors increased 16% in 2010 with a sharp increase seen in specialist mandates like real assets, commodities and other alternatives.

The extra returns for holding shares over risk-free assets will fall by nearly one third from present levels, making a reliance on equities by pension funds "a pretty dangerous strategy", London Business School research warns.

The balance of schemes monitored by the Pension Protection Fund improved to a surplus of £46.1bn at the end of January, figures from the lifeboat fund reveal.

Two contracted-out schemes have transferred to the control of the Financial Assistance Scheme.

US - US real estate investment trusts are seeking a bigger piece of the more than $500bn of property investments from pensions, aiming to attract money from the private-equity funds traditionally favored by managers.

GLOBAL - The extra returns for holding shares over risk-free assets will fall by nearly one third from present levels, making a reliance on equities by pension funds "a pretty dangerous strategy", according to new research by the London Business School....

UK - Interest rate hedging increased 44% in the last three months of last year, driven by pension schemes rushing to capitalise on attractive market swap levels, a survey suggests.

AUSTRALIA - The Australian Government has proposed super funds use tax file numbers (TFNs) to identify members' accounts to help recover the ‘lost' A$18.8bn ($19bn) in superannuation assets.