Threadneedle, the London-based asset manager, has boosted its US equities team with the appointment of fund manager Diane Sobin and analyst Nafis Chowdhury.

Sobin will take up her new US equity fund manager on 12 September. She joins from Columbia Management, where she was based in New York as a portfolio manager for US equities. Chowdhury, meanwhile, is already in role; he was previously an analyst covering UK mergers and acquisitions at Morgan Stanley’s investment banking business.

Threadneedle’s US equities team is now eight-strong, comprising three fund managers and five analysts who oversee some £7 billion in US stocks.

In other recent developments, last week it emerged that Threadneedle plans to launch a Global Opportunities Bond Fund in the third quarter, which will be managed by Jim Cielinski, head of the firm’s 43-strong fixed income team.

The fund will invest in a range of fixed income assets including developed and emerging market government bonds, investment grade and high yield corporate bonds, asset-backed securities, currencies and fixed income derivatives.

The firm said that the proposed fund is being considered in response to the changing fixed income market and will take a flexible approach, in order to adapt to different phases of the economic cycle.