By Raji Menon

LONDON (Reuters) - Pension schemes which have seen billions wiped off their assets due to volatile markets are being advised to hold their nerve and take a long-term view in order to ride out the financial storm.

Fund managers and investment consultants who advise schemes are telling them to wait until markets settle before reassessing their investment strategy.

"It does behove long-term funds like pension schemes to try and look through the noise and focus on what they are trying to achieve and how they are trying to achieve it," said Nick Sykes, a senior investment consultant at consultancy Mercer, which advises over a thousand UK pension schemes.

The 200 largest private pension schemes have lost over 45 billion pounds since the end of August, a report published Wednesday by Aon Consulting found. And after another rollercoaster week, Europe and Asia saw fresh sharp falls in stocks on Friday, knocking the benchmark world equity index to a five-year trough.

Martin Spriggs, head of investments at the London Borough of Brent pension fund, said he was heeding advice to sit tight. Some 60 percent of the fund's 400 million pounds of assets are invested in equities.

"Our fund managers are staying calm; they are obviously struggling with the situation, but in the main they are working through the problems," he said.

Andrew Chapman, pensions manager of the 2 billion pound John Lewis Pension scheme, said: "Our fund managers are shellshocked. Our investment consultants are telling us to hold on and wait until things get better."

Investors have been wrestling with the extreme market turbulence triggered since the collapse of Lehman Brothers (LEHMQ.PK: Quote, Profile, Research) in mid-October.  Continued...