The alternatives business of European asset management house Amundi has added Aberdeen Asset Management's Patel to its team.

European asset manager Amundi has appointed Navik Patel as head of divisional strategies within its alternative investments business. Patel replaces Amelie Derambure who has moved internally within the firm. He will operate at senior analyst level and will be based in London.

Patel joins Amundi from Aberdeen Asset Management’s alternatives business, where he was most recently a senior investment manager for the firm. He has 15 years’ experience within financial services, of which over a decade has been spent operating as an analyst and portfolio manager within the hedge fund industry.

Patel started his career at Coutts & Co in 1999 within the valuations team before becoming an analyst in 2002. He joined RBS Asset Management in 2004 and moved to New York in 2008 to help build the division’s presence and oversee the research of all US-based managers across the firm’s various strategies.

Amundi's alternative investment business holds around $10 billion of assets. Amundi, created out of a joint venture of Credit Agricole and Societe Generale, oversees more than €850 billion (around $904 billion) of assets.