Mr Lagrange is a co-founder and senior managing director of GLG, and has overall responsible for its flagship European Long/Short fund, along with a number of other global equity products.

“We would like to thank Nicolas for serving on our Board and are looking forward to the added perspective Pierre will bring,” said  Noam Gottesman, chairman and co-chief executive of GLG.

Meanwhile, in a deal expected to close by the end of this year’s first quarter, GLG is to acquire Société Générale Asset Management, the French bank's UK long only asset management business.

Under the transaction, GLG will acquire around $8.2 billion of assets under management along with SGAM UK’s investment and support staff, who are primarily based in London.

GLG has said the acquisition will bring added scale and breadth to its existing long only strategies and new distribution channels for GLG’s alternative strategies. It also expects to have a distribution agreement with Société Générale covering GLG’s existing alternative and long only offerings.

As of 30 September 2008, GLG’s net assets under management stood at over $17 billion.