Aviva's Jeremy Charles has joined Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (Swip) as an investment director on the UK equities team.

Investors should switch out of equity income offerings from Axa's George Luckraft and Jupiter's Tony Nutt following underperformance, according to Principal Investment Management.

China's GDP growth rate slowed to 10.3% in the second quarter, down from 11.9% the previous quarter, as the Government made efforts to cool the overheating economy.

UK unemployment fell 0.1% to 7.8% in the three months to May this year, according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics.

The UK economy is recovering but progress is sluggish, the latest GDP figures from the ONS suggest.

T. Bailey is preparing to launch a multi-asset cautious managed fund for Elliot Farley at the end of July.

Invesco Perpetual's European equity income specialist Katharina Hoyland will leave the group in November.

Henderson has merged the New Star European Growth offshore Oeic into the Henderson Horizon Sicav and renamed the vehicle Henderson Horizon European Growth fund.

Skandia has removed George Luckraft from the manager line-up on its £142m UK Best Ideas fund.

China has set the renminbi-dollar exchange rate at its highest level in five years, after announcing it would make its currency more flexible.