Lombard Odier Investment Managers, a unit of the Swiss private bank Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch & Cie, has appointed Ian Clarke as its new deputy chief investment officer for fixed income and currencies in a move that aims to underline the firm’s expansion plans for London.

Clarke was most recently head of internal fixed income at the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, where he worked from 2003, including three years with Stéphane Monier, who he reports to in his new position at LOIM. Before the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Clarke worked as CIO for fixed income UK at Deutsche Bank Asset Management in London. He has also worked for Morgan Stanley and United Bank of Kuwait in London.

Clarke joins LOIM’s London office, which has some 20 staff; his role will focus on developing the unit’s investment processes.

Early this month LOIM extended the range of its bond funds that are actively managed against its fundamentally-weighted bond index. Meanwhile, in May the firm announced Arthur Caye would join its team in August and would take on the role of a managing partner, effective 1 January 2012.

Geneva-headquartered LOIM managed SFr35.8 billion ($42.6 billion) in assets at the end of March, of which SFr13.6 billion was in fixed income strategies.