Asset Management
Fidante Partners Limited has hired John O’Keeffe, as their first Head of Boutique Strategy and Business Management. He was previously at Australia’s Future Fund.
Franklin Templeton Investments has hired Manraj Sekhon as Chief Investment Officer, to oversee their Emerging Markets Equity teams around the world, strengthening their expertise in this area following Mark Mobius announced his retirement.
Former ING CEO Jan Hommen has been appointed as Chairman of BlackRock Netherlands’s Dutch business. He will take on a broad advisory role, focused on maintaining and further enhancing relationships with clients, regulators and governmental bodies, and will advise on the group’s long-term business strategy for the Dutch market.
Eaton Vance Management (International) has appointed a five-person global fixed-income team in Frankfurt, Germany. Astrid Vogler, who was formerly at Oechsle International Advisors will lead the team, which joins the Global Income group, co-led by Michael Cirami, and Eric Stein.
AXA Investment Managers – Real Assets has appointed Florence Dard as Global Head of Business Development, where she will oversee the newly-created business development department, which will bring relevant internal teams together as a single business unit.
Allianz Global Investors has hired Amundi’s high yield portfolio manager, Sébastien Ploton, to strengthen its Credit Investment Management team. Ploton will be responsible for managing the Allianz euro high-yield defensive strategy.
Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management has appointed Selina Piening as Head of Sales for Germany and Austria, effective 18 January 2018. Ms. Piening has been working as Director Third Party Distribution for the regions Germany and Austria, in Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management Frankfurt branch since 2011.
Fintech
Asset management fintech, Active Asset Allocation has appointed Pascal Dumont as Partner and Head of Institutional Sales. He moves from BNP Paribas Asset Management, where he was Head of Institutional Sales France.
Hedge Funds
Will Evans, Global Franchise Manager for Commodities at Goldman Sachs is joining hedge fund Citadel LLC as Commodities Chief Operating Officer.
Och-Ziff has appointed Robert Shafir, formerly a senior executive at Credit Suisse, as CEO after a succession battle at the US publicly listed hedge fund. He replaces founder, Dan Och, and joins the board of directors.
Three established managers are preparing to ping to launch firms with at least a billion dollars each. Daniel Sundheim, who was Investment Chief at Viking Global Investors, Michael Gelband, who quit as Millennium Management’s Head of Fixed Income, and Steven Cohen, who was barred from trading client money following his pleading guilty to securities fraud, are planning to roll out their long-anticipated funds.
Global macro fund management firm Drobny Capital has opened a Shanghai office.
Kristen Eshak Weldon, co-Head of Blackstone Group LP’s European hedge fund investment program and a campaigner for women in finance, has left the firm.
Private Banking / Wealth Management
RBC has poached a team from Wells Fargo Advisors, luring the Troy, Caiaze & Reed Wealth Planning Counselors team who managed $600 million in assets. The team is made up of Senior Vice President Joseph Troy, Robert Caiaze, also Senior Vice President, Adam Reed and James McNair. They will be joined by Client Associate Bonnie Feinstein.
Deepak Soni, Vontobel’s top private banker for U.S. clients has left the firm, following a dispute over corporate and leadership culture, and will leave immediately.
KBL has made three senior appointments to its executive committee. Nicholas Harvey, joins from Precision Capital, as Deputy CEO. Following Group Chief Risk Officer & Regulatory Affairs’ Yves Pitsaer’s retirement, Siegfried Marissens, will assume additional responsibility for Compliance and Regulatory Affairs, and Anthony Swings, has been named Group Chief Risk Officer.
Private Equity / Direct Investment
Houlihan Lokey has appointed Jim McKnight as an MD to lead financial restructuring in Australia. He moves from Fort Street Advisers where he was Head of Restructuring.
Sellside – Sales; Trading; Structuring; Research
Daniel Nehren who led equity execution at Citadel, has joined Barclays as an MD and will head statistical modeling and development, as well as equities, more than eight months after leaving Citadel.
Technology
Synpulse has appointed André Burger as Partner and Christoph Nützenadel and Konrad Niggli as Managing Partners.