BNY Mellon Investment Management is opening its first German office in Frankfurt am Main and taking on local professionals Thilo Wolf and Silvia Mischel to run to the operation.

Wolf has been appointed as country head for Germany, while Mischel has been hired as director of institutional sales.

The company said that, via the new office, it would offer products to institutional investors as well as wholesale and wealth management clients in Germany from its boutique investment managers.

These managers includ Standish Mellon Asset Management, Alcentra, Insight Investments and Newton Investment Management.

The company said its sales method had already succeeded in other European countries, including France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the Nordics.

Wolf is joining BNY Mellon Investment Management from Société Générale, where he was part of the cross asset solutions team and responsible for asset management clients in Germany and Austria.

In that capacity, he specialised in multi-asset and absolute return strategies.

Before working for Société Générale, he was at HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt for seven years.

He will be supported by Mischel, who held various senior distribution roles at WestLB Group and Meriten Investment Management.

In other news, Amundi is pooling its skills in thematic equities to form a specialised unit for this type of investment, which will be part of its subsidiary CPR Asset Management (CPR AM).

Romain Boscher, Amundi’s global head of equities, said: “CPR AM’s reputation in this space will bolster Amundi’s position in thematic management.”

He said the company was “mobilising all its resources into offering clients a range of innovative and high-performing investment strategies”.

Amundi said CPR AM would draw on Amundi’s track record in thematic equities and in particular in strategies within sectors such as natural resources, gold, M&A-driven themes and those relating to luxury and lifestyle.

From the end of this month, CPR AM will manage all of Amundi’s thematic equities funds.

It will be led by Vafa Ahmadi, head of thematic equities, and his deputy Estelle Ménard, and will manage more than €3.6bn of assets.

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