AUSTRALIA - AvSuper Fund has dropped US firm Wellington Management from its international equities mandate in favour of Independent Franchise Partnership (IFP) following a recent review.

SWEDEN - AP7 returned 14.8% in 2010, almost 50% more than the nation's private funds.

US - The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), the largest US public pension, is now worth just as much as when Lehman Brothers Holdings went bankrupt in 2008 and wiped out $6.8trn in US stock-market value in six months.

UK - Commercial real estate sales rose by 44% last year as pension funds and other institutional investors targeted supermarkets and central London office space, figures show.

DENMARK - ATP has named its deputy CIO Henrik Gade Jepsen as chief investment officer.

GLOBAL - Have you missed the biggest stories in pensions this week? Find out below, as we list the top 10 most popular stories on www.globalpensions.com over the past seven days.

UK/US - AllianceBernstein is to launch a range of off-the-shelf target date funds for trust and contract- based defined contribution schemes.

GLOBAL - France, Germany, the UK and US must rein in their pension and health care expenditure if they are to stabilise their debt in the long term, a report by Moody's warns.

GERMANY - Allianz Global Investors chief executive officer (CEO) Joachim Faber has announced his intention to retire at the end of the year.

FRANCE - Antoine de Salins, executive director at Fonds de réserve pour les retraites (FRR), has left to join Groupama Asset Management (AM) as chief investment officer.