Iceland

ICELAND - A group of Icelandic pension funds will buy a 25% stake in geothermal power company HS Orka for ISK8.06bn ($71.5m) from Magma Energy, the firm said.

ICELAND - Iceland's pension funds, which hold the bonds behind most of the country's mortgage debt, will try to block proposals to forgive as much as $2bn in bad loans that the government says it is considering.

GLOBAL - The average assets to gross domestic product ratio for OECD pension funds dropped from 75.5% of GDP in 2007 to 63.4% in 2008, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

IRELAND- Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have partnered to launch a range of ETFs under the name of Source. The range has recently received approval from the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority for the listing of 50 ETFs.

ICELAND - Iceland's government is still struggling to find enough resources to rescue its banking system and has called on the country's local pension funds to repatriate foreign assets.

ICELAND - The ISK61bn (US$681m) Festa lífeyrissjóður has appointed Optima Fund Management to run a new hedge fund investment worth €5m (US$7.3m), according to MandateWire.

ICELAND - Net assets for pension payments increased by ISK200bn (US$2.4bn) during 2007, a report by the Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority (FME) has found.

ICELAND - The real returns of Icelandic pension funds are expected to be as low as 0% to 1% for 2007 because of poor performing domestic equities, but experts remain unconcerned about the long term health of the funds.

Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM) has recruited Tomas Bristedt to its retail wholesale Nordic team, with responsibility for the Nordic region.

ICELAND - The impending burden of pension payments on the Icelandic treasury will be negligible compared to most other industrialised countries thanks to the pension system's remarkably strong economic position, said Central Bank of Iceland board of governors...