It's a simple rule of advertising that if you want to sell a product, you get a celebrity to endorse it. Now, the market for securities lending has been handed just such a shot in the arm with news that one of the most high-profile pension funds in the UK is set to take on the much-maligned practice.

The multi-billion pound Pension Protection Fund, the government-launched lifeboat for bankrupt companies' schemes, has announced it has mandated its custodian to start lending out the equities and bonds in its portfolio to short-sellers and other market participants for the first time since it launched in 2005.