The latest senior moves in wealth and asset management from across the UK, Europe and the Middle East.

QUAERO Capital
Geneva-based specialist asset manager QUAERO Capital has appointed Sophie Bigeard as head of multi-asset strategies for its French subsidiary Quaero Capital (France) SAS.

Bigeard will be in charge of developing and managing multi-asset mandates for French institutional clients. Before joining the firm, she was head of UCITS analysis and selection for the OFI Group.

A multi-manager investment professional for 25 years, Bigeard began her career in 1995 at the Banque du Louvre, first as a mutual fund analyst and then as head of external partnerships. In 2002, she joined the Societe Generale group in Luxembourg as a fund of funds manager. In 2004, she joined OFI Asset Management as a fund of funds manager and then as head of long-only multi-management. In 2017, she created and headed the UCI Selection team for the entire OFI Group.

Broadridge  
Funds platform Broadridge has hired Linda Power as operations director in Dublin, where she will help scale services to European asset managers. Power has spent 20 years in financial services working across APAC and EMEA. She is joining Broadridge after a long career at State Street, where she held senior management positions in Ireland, China and Hong Kong.

“We look forward to Linda’s experience making an impact on our client servicing and new client onboarding, particularly as we are continuing the flow of new clients to the business for our regulatory services and are currently onboarding two large clients for UCITS KIIDs service,” said Arun Sarwal, who became CEO of the rebranded Broadridge Fund Comunication Solutions after the fintech's March merger with FundsLibrary, where he was CEO.

SYZ Capital
Gian Kull has been named head of special situations and uncorrelated strategies at alternatives specialist SYZ Capital, reporting to CEO Marc Syz.

SYZ Capital was launched in 2018 to provide private client investing alongside the Syz family group across alternatives, including niche private equity themes and direct investments.

Kull will be responsible for managing portfolios as well as lead executing some of the firm’s private market investments. He has spent a decade investing in special situations, including distressed assets and litigation. He is joining from Multiplicty Partners AG, where he focused on structured litigation investments. He was previously director of sourcing at European private equity turnaround fund Valtegra, and before that he managed distressed credit investments for Brigade Capital Management in Zurich.

“[Kull] will contribute … to sourcing niche investment opportunities, as we continue to democratise the access and deliver the benefits of alternatives to a much broader investor universe,” Syz said.

The group, based in Zurich, said Europe has proven attractive the last year for buying distressed portfolios in secondary strategies, where recent market volatility has increased mispricing. "The current economic environment will offer further such interesting and unique opportunities, which can hold significant value," the firm said.