News

Royal London and Royal Liver in early stage of takeover talks; Pensions schemes most pressing risk to firms; Case study

THE PENSION Protection Fund has unveiled the scaling factor enabling schemes to calculate their levy bills for 2007-2008.

UK - Institutional investors have been told to expect ‘service as usual', despite a possible merger between Royal London Group and Royal Liver.

UK - The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) levy scaling factor has been slammed by Watson Wyatt for potentially costing companies five times more than last year.

ABERDEEN Asset Management has unveiled its interim results for the six months to the end of March - unveiling an 18.5pc increase in pre-tax profits.

US - Reports that TPG, formerly Texas Pacific Group, had been discussing selling shares to major pension funds were dismissed as speculation by the private equity firm.

GLOBAL - Schroders has released its first quarter results and announced a loss of £2.5bn in institutional assets under management (AUM) despite reporting a pre-tax profit of 30%.

CANADA - The Canada Post Pension Plan has reported benchmark beating returns of 14.3% on its defined benefit (DB) scheme in 2006, bringing its total assets to C$14.35bn.

THE £2BN Avon Pension Fund has appointed five fund of hedge fund managers to run 10pc of its assets.

UK - Knauf Insulation has appointed Mercer Retirement Solutions to provide a packaged pension service.