UK

A Turkish group managing military pensions entered exclusive talks to buy British Steel, the first step in a rescue that could save about  5000 jobs in the U.K.’s manufacturing heartland.

The U.K.’s No. 2 steelmaker was put into liquidation in May, just three years after being acquired by private equity firm Greybull Capital LLP for 1 pound. In addition to contracting demand, surging costs and cheap imports, British steelmakers face uncertainty around Brexit, with some European Union customers concerned that tariffs could be imposed on shipments from the U.K.

Oyak Group, with assets of more than $19 billion, will review British Steel over the next two months, while talking to the company’s customers, suppliers, employees and labor unions. Oyak’s Ataer Holdings unit, which co-owns steelmakers in Turkey, is the preferred buyer after making an “acceptable” offer, the U.K.’s Insolvency Service said.

  Bloomberg

Britain’s competitions watchdog will look into the advice given by consultants to pension schemes and other institutions managing over 1.6 trillion pounds of funds, to see if there are conflicts of interest, it said on Thursday.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will assess whether investment consultants offer a poor level of service and whether difficulties comparing and switching consultants provide little incentive for them to compete for customers.

In addition, it will investigate if there are barriers to entry into the investment consultancy sector, it said in a statement providing more detail on the probe it launched last week.

  Reuters

Despite some distinctly high-profile instances of economic and political uncertainty during the course of 2016, Moneyfacts data showed the average pension fund finished the year up by 15.7% – 13.1 percentage points higher than in 2015, when pension fund growth was just 2.6% on average.

This is the fifth consecutive year of positive pension fund growth and, Moneyfacts said, would be welcome news to those saving into a defined contribution pension scheme, as well as to the growing number of retirees who remain invested in pension funds by opting for income drawdown.

Of all the pension funds surveyed, the great majority (94%) delivered positive growth during 2016. In terms of the leading ABI pension fund sectors, Commodity/Energy (70.9%), Global Emerging Markets (32.4%) and North America Equities (31.2%) led the way.

  Prof.Adviser / property118 / Moneyfacts