Carmignac Gestion, the French asset manager, has expanded its European team with the appointment of Laurent Ducoin as head of the European management team, effective 1 October 2011 and to be based in Paris.

Ducoin was latterly at BlackRock in London as pan-European equities manager in the European specialist team; he was appointed as an analyst in 2004 by Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, which has since merged with BlackRock.

In his new role Ducoin will co-manage Carmignac Grande Europe with Samir Essafri - who was already sharing the responsibility for this fund - and will also co-manage Carmignac Euro-Entrepreneurs, the firm said in a statement.

Other members of the team include François-Joseph Furry - manager of Carmignac Euro-Patrimoine and Jordan Cvetanovski who remains manager of the Carmignac Euro-Entrepreneurs fund and co-manager of the Carmignac Grande Europe fund until his departure on 30 September.

Last month Carmignac Gestion promoted Eric Le Coz to deputy managing director, making him co-responsible for the fund management team along with the company’s founder, Edouard Carmignac.