The latest moves in wealth management from across Europe and the Middle East.

Schroders
Schroders has appointed an investment specialist, Kari Sigurdsson, as a quantitative portfolio manager. He joins the UK-listed firm’s Systemic Investments team.

The role is newly created, Schroders said.

Sigurdsson has joined from AQR Capital Management where he was a vice president for five years, focused on factor research for global stock selection. He also concentrated on developing new factors based on traditional and alternative datasets.

Previously, he spent five years at BlackRock where he specialised in factor research for global stock selection models.

Last year Schroders said that Philipp Kauer had joined the SSI unit from Man AHL in the newly-created role of quantitative portfolio manager.

Aegon Asset Management
Aegon Asset Management has appointed two figures to join its responsible investment team, now with a total of 14 persons.

Brunno Maradei joined to take up the newly-minted role as a global head of environmental, social and governance investments (ESG) based in The Hague, the Netherlands, and Julius Huttunen joins responsible investment manager, based in Chicago, US. Both will report into Roelie van Wijk-Russchen, global head of responsible business and public affairs.

Maradei joins from the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg where he was a senior investment officer leading execution teams for project finance deals outside the European Union, focusing on climate-friendly impact investments in Africa. 

Huttunen previously worked at Calvert Research & Management based in Washington DC, where he was an ESG research analyst covering corporate issuers (from an ESG perspective) and focusing on the continuous improvement of the Calvert Fund’s ESG process. 

Druces
City law firm Druces has brought in Samantha Hook, a specialist real estate finance partner to join the firm’s real estate team. 

Hook was previously a banker at Coutts. Prior to that, she was at Howard Kennedy, where she built a reputation for advising on real estate financing, refinancing, acquisition, disposal and leasing of both commercial and residential property.

Hook acts for a number of international family offices and will play a key role in bolstering Druces’ established family office practice, working alongside the firm’s private client team, as well as corporate, dispute resolution, immigration and other members of the real estate teams. She is an associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers.

Brown Shipley
Brown Shipley, the UK firm, has appointed Cyrique Bourbon as asset allocation strategist, based in its London office.  

Cyrique joins as a senior member of Brown Shipley’s Investment Office and reports to chief investment officer Toby Vaughan.

With 15 years of investment experience, Cyrique joins from Morningstar Investment Management Europe where he was lead manager of the firm’s flagship UK discretionary multi-asset portfolios. Prior to this, he spent several years at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management.