EUROPE – Marc van Heel has left Goldman Sachs Asset Management for a yet unspecified position at asset manager BlackRock.

"I will join BlackRock," Van Heel confirmed to IPE, "but not as head of Benelux and the Middle East of iShares, as has been suggested in the media."

He said BlackRock would announce his new position, which he will start at the beginning of May, towards the end of April.

Van Heel, who is currently on 'gardening leave', dismissed speculation that his departure from the US-based asset manager was connected with the legal dispute between GSAM and Vervoer, the €11bn industry-wide pension fund for the Dutch transport industry.

"Vervoer terminated its contract with Goldman Sachs three days before I started there in May 2010," he said.

Van Heel was managing director and head of the Benelux region for institutional investors at GSAM and oversaw the opening of the company's Amsterdam office.

He said he would continue his part-time job as a professional photographer at his own company Separate Reality Photography.

Erik Bouland, a bonds expert, is to succeed Van Heel at GSAM.

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