Blackstone Alternative Asset Management, the fund of hedge funds segment of the Blackstone Group with approximately $31 billion under management at the end of June 2008, has hired Olivier Meyohas as a managing director to head its London office and lead its business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Gideon Berger, who has led the firm’s London office since the end of 2006, has been named chief risk officer and will return to New York.

Mr Meyohas will sit on BAAM’s executive and investment committees, reporting to Tomilson Hill, vice chairman of the Blackstone group and president and chief executive of BAAM.

Mr Meyohas has spent the last 16 years at Goldman Sachs in London, where he was a managing director; he most recently served as co-head of the pension advisory group.