In their responses to the interim report of the Morris review on the actuarial profession, the Association of Consulting Actuaries (ACA) and the Investment Management Association (IMA) have clashed over the unbundling of actuarial advice to schemes.

Financial Times Business, the publisher of Pensions Management and Pensions Week, has relaunched High Net Worth as a quarterly magazine.

February has been a bumper month for property launches with no fewer that eight new funds hitting the market.

Stories about pension schemes going bust and leaving their members high and dry have had an enormous impact, but the creation of a proactive regulator, that has the power to act and the legal strength to enforce its judgements, will turn the tide, says Alan Johnson

Hopes that the Allders retail group could be sold as a going concern and that the Allders Pension Scheme could be saved from wind-up look to have disappeared as it was announced that the group would be broken up and each of the sites would be sold individually.

The future of Marlborough Stirling (MS) remains unclear since the financial services technology company put itself up for sale at the end of 2004.

Lecturers at Britain’s universities and colleges could be the latest public sector workers to join the protests over proposed cuts to their pensions.

Schroders has made two new appointments to its institutional business team as part of its drive to provide more solutions based advice.

I promise you I’m not making this up, but I’ve just read in the New York Times about a guy who was dead at his office desk for five days before anyone noticed. Really. Evidently this bloke, George Turklebaum, who was a proof-reader at a New York firm, died of a heart attack on a Monday in the open plan office he shared with twenty three other workers, but no-one noticed until the Saturday when a cleaner tried to ask him why he was working at the weekend. I mean, how bad’s that?

The approach of A-day is highlighting the inequalities of pension provision for executive directors as more attention is paid to the pension element of remuneration packages, says a new report.

As pensions are designed to provide benefits in old age, they are very much ageist. Hopefully, the older the individual when they retire, the greater the pension they get.

Despite the expectation that simplification will make pensions more transparent and attractive to investors, there are

The Finance Act 2004 will increase flexibility for death in service benefit provision. Lump sums up to the lifetime allowance can be paid free of tax under the new tax regime. Dependants’ pensions will not be tested against the lifetime allowance, but will be taxed as income.

Higham Group, specialist services provider to life and pensions companies, has acquired Dunnett Shaw in a bid to boost its administration consulting capability.

It is difficult to remember a time when more change has been looming for pension schemes and those who run them.

The Pensions Management Institute (PMI) has launched a continous development standard, the Pension Plan Executive Certificate (PPEC), to enable pensions managers to show that they have the expertise to run a pension scheme.

The Society of Pension Consultants (SPC) has designed a simplified document to help pension schemes with the lifetime allowance (LTA) to be introduced under the new pensions tax regime from April 2006.

This time last year I sat down to look at the pensions agenda – pensions simplification and A-day seemed a long way away. I attended meetings to discuss the issues with independent financial advisers (IFAs) and the response in many quarters was lukewarm to say the least.

Aqera, the financial services software developer, has been put up for sale after a series of recent failures to attract tenders from providers.

When it comes to patent protection for financial products, UK companies lag behind their US rivals. But this is about to change, giving companies a critical choice, argues Robin Fry

There is a danger that life annuities might disappear from the financial scene, but longevity-linked products, bonds and derivatives whose returns are linked to one or more mortality indices could save the day, says David Blake

Life companies have realised that short-term gains from outsourcing and re-organisation are easy to achieve and so they are becoming more unwilling to pass the benefit on to a third party. But Liberata Financial Services is getting ahead by doing just the opposite, says Chris Jackson

The TUC’s Brendan Barber talks to Pádraig Floyd about the state of pensions and how the unions can help

Try to imagine lining up for a race without knowing what you are there to achieve. Should you just run as fast as you can out of the block? Or should you pace yourself, conserving energy, running efficiently, so you can perform well over the entire distance? In a sprint the former tactic is suitable, but if you are going to stand any chance of success in a longer race – and here you can insert ‘pension investing’ – you need to follow the latter discipline.

The PPF will be financed through a pension protection levy charged to all private sector DB schemes. However, DB schemes are already in decline and what looks like an extra tax could be the terminal blow, says Frank Chacko

It is something of a mystery that at a time when the population at large is pinning its collective investment hopes to the residential property market as their main, in some cases only, investment for retirement, institutional pension investors in the UK remain at best lukewarm to the idea of property.

Are the developments in pensions having a knock on effect on corporate healthcare benefits and what trends are emerging? Laverne Hadaway finds out

Many of the technology-based providers who have felt the UK market should be their next hunting ground have yet to develop wrap products that fully meet the requirements of the UK market. However, with a few adjustments from the Australian model, the corporate wrap is the way of the future, says Nick Groom

Three determinations highlight the important role medical advice plays in deciding whether or not an ill-health pension will be granted. Jason Shaw reports

With the arrival of pensions simplification, growth in Sipps next year is inevitable. A panel of industry experts discuss the most important factors affecting the individual pensions market at present

David Trenner, technical manager at Intelligent Pensions, answers this month’s G60 question on the maximum contributions a person could make to his current pension arrangements in the 2004/05 tax year

The role of the custodian continues to evolve as it is ultimately shaped by investor trends and the needs of its clients, says Jemma Broadgate

One of the key influencers affecting annuity rate pricing is longevity assumptions, and probably the biggest factors influencing longevity assumptions, other than health, are age, followed by gender and then lifestyle, says Peter Quinton

As Robert Barrington explains, socially responsible investment has expanded to continental Europe while the trend towards shareholder activism and engagement in the UK looks set to grow even stronger

Daniel Mouen-Makoua has been appointed as UK chief operating officer (UK COO) by Axa Investment Managers.

The first non-executive directors for the Pensions Regulator have been unveiled.

Alan Pickering, Laurie Edmans, Chris Swinson, Caroline Thomson and Roger Walsom have all been approved to join the board and take up their positions with immediate effect.