GERMANY/ITALY – Gartmore Investment Management has further strengthened its Frankfurt and Milan offices as part of its European expansion strategy.

Markus Bernard and Anke Frémion have been appointed in Frankfurt to take care of business development. Bernard, who joins Gartmore from Allianz, is responsible for German core accounts whilst Frémion, formerly with Commerzbank Asset Management, will take care of business development for Switzerland and French speaking Luxembourg.

In Italy, Diego Campagnoli has been recruited as sales director, with responsibility for developing and managing commercial relationships with institutional investors, commercial and private banks, and other bancassurance distributors. He joins from Zurich Investments and is part of the recruitment drive to build up the recently-established Milan office.

A spokeswoman for Gartmore says the company is likely to expand further in Europe but any decision depends on how new head of global bancassurance, Steen Steinckke, who is based in London, sees the market developing. “Steincke is just about settled in so we are waiting to see what he recommends as the next move. Certainly we are looking at other opportunities to expand into Europe but there is nothing concrete to report,” she says.

Elsewhere, Gartmore has also appointed a new corporate communications manager, Avril O’Connor and the new Gartmore SICAV North American fund has been given the green light for public marketing in five further countries. The fund is now authorised in Austria, Belgium, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

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