Heritage Capital, the merchant banking division of Swiss-based Banque Heritage, has appointed three new London-based directors, along with Niels Nooy as managing director and head of emerging markets trading for Europe, Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

In his new role Mr Nooy will lead the firm’s trading and sales team, as well as working alongside Henry Nevstad, head of markets and execution, Heritage said in a statement.

Prior to joining Heritage, Mr Nooy worked at Phoenix Partners Group, where he was responsible for launching and building its emerging markets group. Earlier in his career Mr Nooy worked at ING Barings, where he trading distressed and defaulted emerging market debt, Paribas Capital Markets and Merrill Lynch.

Veronika Orekhovskaia, Michael Rimmell and Severine Carayon have also joined Heritage Capital in London as directors – appointments aimed at strengthening the firm’s origination and distribution platform in emerging markets as well as in core European and UK markets.

Joining from Swiss private bank Lombard Odier, Ms Orekhovskaia will assume responsibility for developing client relationships with asset managers dealing with the emerging markets asset class. In her prior career she also worked at BNP Paribas and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein.

Mr Rimmell, who joins the firm from Natixis, will be responsible for developing relationships with clients in the UK and Ireland, particularly asset managers, hedge funds, bank treasuries and building societies.

Joining from Kyte Group-Market Securities, Ms Carayon will be responsible for covering France. Earlier in her career, Ms Carayon worked at Natixis, former CDC Ixis, and BNP Paribas.

The appointments are the latest Heritage Capital has made to its trading and sales team in London and form part of its global expansion plans.

“With the appointment of Niels and Veronika we are not only strengthening our origination and distribution platform in emerging markets, but also broadening our penetration of core European clients with the addition of Michael and Severine,” said Joe Dryer, joint chief executive at Heritage Capital.

In other recent developments, in November last year Heritage Capital launched its first Latin American office in São Paulo, Brazil.