News

Reforms introducing auto-enrolment, employer duties and personal accounts will be staged in over a three year period from 2012, the department for work and pensions says.

Buyouts would be a bad deal in over four-fifths of liability de-risking exercises, latest Punter Southall research reveals.

The government is considering starting the personal accounts trustee corporation early in a bid to prepare for the 2012 reforms.

INDIA - The board of the Pension Regulatory Fund Development Authority (PFRDA) yesterday approved a proposal to manage companies' pension pots, said executive director Rani Nair.

UK - Barratt Developments has posted a £7.1m (US$11.6m) gain in income as a result of closing its defined benefit scheme to current employees.

CANADA - The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec has committed C$39.8m (US$37.2m) to Canadian technology company GLV, as part of an ongoing programme to invest C$1.5bn in Quebec-based firms.

EUROPE - The proposed Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive is in some respects "misguided" and would reduce investment returns and increase risk, the UK's National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) has claimed.

SINGAPORE - The Government of Singapore Investment Corp. (GIC) yesterday said it made a US$1.6bn profit on its $6.88bn investment in troubled bank Citigroup.

NETHERLANDS - Dutch pension fund PNO Media awarded a US$146m global emerging markets equity mandate to Principal Global Investors.

The Conservatives will restore the link between earnings and the level of the basic state pension should they win next year's general elections, David Cameron says.