France

FRANCE - The giant e13.1bn French Fonds de Réserve des Retraites (FRR) has appointed Mercer Investment Consulting to assist with its fund manager selection process which starts later this year.

FRANCE - French bank BNP Paribas is poised take advantage of the growing hedge fund sector with the launch of a new prime brokerage service.

FRANCE - AXA Investment Managers said it enjoyed a successful year in 2002, with an 11% increase in total net revenues and an 8% rise in operating income year-on-year from 2001.

FRANCE - AXA Investment Managers' has appointed Laurent Gueunier as head of investment-grade CDOs (collateralised debt obligations).

FRANCE - Northern Trust Global Investments has bagged an advisory mandate from Groupama Asset Management in Paris. The mandate will cover US equity mandates totalling US$300m in large- and mid cap assets.

FRANCE - CDC IXIS Asset Management has appointed Laurent Imbert as head of European and emerging equity.

FRANCE - Pictet Funds is looking at opening an office in Paris, France on the back of the success of its expansion into Madrid, Spain.

FRANCE -French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin took a softly-softly line on pensions reform in a recent speech to the French Economic and Social Council in the wake of union-led demonstrations by more than 300,000 people against pensions reform.

FRANCE - Unigestion has appointed Rolf Winzeler as marketing director of its private equity division.

BELGIUM/FRANCE - Euroclear France, the world's largest settlement system, has launched Europe's first automated processing service for Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) in the primary market.