LONDON, April 19 (Reuters) – Investment firm Alliance Trust
<ATST.L> will launch its first fixed income product later this
year and diversify equity exposure towards Asia while western
growth appears fragile, its chief executive said on Monday.

Katherine Garrett-Cox told Reuters the FTSE 100 company will
capitalise from investors’ appetite for income products by
launching a mainly UK-focused corporate bond fund in the next
two to three months after hiring a team of four bond managers
from Scottish Widows last year [ID:nLR513996].

Spare a thought for the UK Pensions Regulator:  is losing its CEO next month (to a new agency set up to educate the UK public on money and financial matters) right at the time when its actions will be scrutinised.

Iberia and BA are telling the markets they want to merge, but the 3.7 billion pound BA pension deficit is also telling one or two things to the shareholders and investor squad. That is why what the Pensions Regulator says to BA’s plans to face the pension black-hole is very important.

LONDON (Reuters) – Pension Corp, the specialist insurer, is making a first foray into property and has upped its hedge funds exposure as part of a broad effort to diversify a largely fixed-income and cash-oriented strategy.

Rob Sewell, chief financial officer, told Reuters the group could invest up to 100 million pounds in its first allocation to property.

LONDON, April 16 (Reuters) – Pension Corp, a specialist UK
insurer, is making a first foray into real estate and has upped
its hedge funds exposure as part of a broad effort to diversify
a largely fixed-income and cash-oriented strategy.

Rob Sewell, chief financial officer, told Reuters the group
could invest up to 100 million pounds ($155.2 million) in its
first allocation to property.

LONDON, April 14 (Reuters) – British Airways’ <BAY.L>
$5.6-billion pension deficit could still be a deal breaker in
its merger with Spain’s Iberia <IBLA.MC> to create the world’s
third-largest airline.

Iberia has reserved the right to walk away if the UK
pensions regulator forces bigger costs on BA to sort out the
shortfall than the Spanish carrier thinks is affordable.

Ever agreed with  George Orwell’s  sarcastic vision of equality? If you are nodding,  you will not be surprised to hear that the same wide range of equality degrees applies to pensions.

Take public pension employees; some say the fact they are entitled to a pension equivalent to a percentage of their wages, no matter what markets/economic cycles are up to, makes them “pension aristocracy”.  Some companies’ executives share the same exalted fate but most UK workers are today part of the pension plebs, enrolled in defined contribution pension schemes, which pay out only what the markets have delivered.

Islamic funds may well be ”the most dynamic part of the Sharia-compliant sector”, supported by with increasing interest from  deep pocketed investors,  but if you are a hedge fund manager,  Banque Sarasin reckons you have no hope of getting a slice of this Sharia pie.

The Sarasin Islamic Wealth Management Report 2010 says many Islamic investors cannot be persuaded hedge funds are linked to the real economy (one of the tenets of Islamic finance), plus investors are discouraged by short selling which, strictly speaking, is also prohibited.