News

UK - Overlay Asset Management has launched a specialist fund to invest exclusively in emerging market currencies.

UK - Guernsey's public sector pension fund has suffered a paper loss of £2.25m (US$4.6m) because of an ill-timed investment in Northern Rock.

The Pension Protection Fund has rejected claims it "moved the goalposts" by raising the cut-off point for schemes paying its risk-based levy.

THE NATIONAL Association of Pension Funds has recommended that pension funds jointly finance a test case against HM Revenue and Customs in a bid to recover hundreds of millions of pounds of VAT for UK schemes.

GLOBAL - Sovereign and Public Pension Reserve Funds (SPFs) have proven an increasingly important and popular method of investing, with global SPF assets worth in excess of $4.1trn in the 2006 fiscal year.

THE SVM Global Opportunities Fund has gathered more than £50m assets under management following strong investment performance over the last 18 months.

QIC, the fund manager for the A$20bn QSuper superannuation fund, has carved itself a reputation as an investment pioneer. Rachel Alembakis speaks to some of its top investment personnel

US - The Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS) has reached a settlement with Qwest Communications International, a telecommunications company that lost shareholders over US$1.6bn by artificially inflating its stock price in 2001.

GLOBAL - At a time when private equity is causing controversy, a clear majority of pension funds has voted it the most interesting asset class for 2008, according to the results of this month's Global Pensions 100 Panel.

STANDARD LIFE has celebrated the third anniversary of its Self Invested Personal Pension, which has attracted 41,700 customers with £7.1bn funds under management.