bonds

Growth of Standard Life's sales has been heavily dominated this year by the pension reforms of A-Day, according to the life insurer's latest business figures.

Ian Frost is moving from BlackRock to Investec Asset Management to become a global fixed income portfolio manager while Aegon Asset Management has also announced a series of new arrivals to its fixed income team.

Sales of offshore investments are estimated to have grown in the UK by as much as 50% last year. This makes this market one of the fastest growing markets in UK financial services so it is surprising for me to still come across IFAs who discount it automatically....

Are these events related? The European Savings Directive does not generate as much revenue as was expected; investigation into Barclays' offshore accounts reveals poor declaration of offshore accounts, and there is a strong increase in the amount of money...

Investment house F&C has announced it has moved underweight in equities for the first time in three years, but this contrasts with research from New Star which suggests equities perform best between October and January.

Rod Davidson is joining Scottish Widows Investment Partnership as its global head of fixed income.

Financial advisers are expecting more clients to surrender their Standard Life with-profits policies as its latest bonus rate announcement reveals the fund returned just 2.2% in the last six months.

Scottish Widows has added online processing to it's extranet to allow advisers to submit applications and get illustrations for its flexible options bond.

Credit analysts are warning corporate and government bonds markets are seeing as much volatility as the equities market, and spreads are fluctuating to levels seen prior to the Asian and Russian crises.

A survey of the UK annuity market published by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has highlighted potential risks for the insurance industry in dealing with longevity risk and long-term debt shortages.