News

The Scottish National Party has accused prime minister Gordon Brown of "simply spinning" over pension change during his speech at the Labour Party conference.

LYXOR Asset Management has teamed up with the London and Tokyo stock exchanges to launch an exchange traded fund tracking the Japanese TOPIX index.

INCLUDING: GLOBAL - SEC and FSA at hedge fund debate, UK - Millennium Global Investments appoints new MD, UK - New staff at Fidelity

US - Pension funds still do not publish sufficient information to investors about cash funding requirements, according to a report by credit ratings agency Fitch.

CAPITA Hartshead has bought Aspen Actuaries & Pension Consultants for an undisclosed sum only three weeks after taking over Higham Dunnett Shaw.

GLOBAL - HSBC has launched a global climate change benchmark index, and four investable global climate change sub indices.

ITALY - BNP Paribas has bought the fund of hedge funds (FoHF ) business from Depo Bank to reinforce its strategic commitment to Italian institutional investors, asset managers and pension funds.

AUSTRALIA - The minister for families, community services and indigenous affairs, Mal Brough, said the federal government would look at improving the single age pension as it was "incredibly challenging to live on".

CANADA - The consortium including the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan (OTPP) moved a step closer to acquiring Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE) as shareholders voted overwhelmingly in favour of the deal.

ProTRUST has hired former Mercer director and worldwide partner David Johnson to head up its expansion plans as consulting director.