GERMANY - Schroder Investment Management in London has recruited Andreas Köster as its new director of multi-asset funds, effective immediately.

The 37-year-old Köster joins from AXA Investment Managers in Frankfurt, where he was head of asset allocation and balanced funds.

Schroders said that Köster would target the multi-asset funds to European institutional clients “which must meet pension liabilities.” He reports to Curt Custard, head of multi-assets in London.

Under the multi-asset concept, the fund manager aims to achieve wide diversification of a client’s portfolio by investing in an eclectic mix of asset classes. The mix includes traditional ones like stocks and bonds along with hedge funds, private equity, real estate and commodities.

Schroders claims to be the world leader in multi-asset funds, having taken in €23bn in assets with the products.

In Germany, the concept will vie with the relatively new multi-manager strategy. Providers of multi-manager funds in Germany include SEI and Commerzbank, Russell and Metzler and, most recently, Deutsche Asset Management and RMC, a German investment consultant.

According to Martin Theisinger, chief executive of Schroders in Germany, interest in multi-asset products was growing among German institutional clients, including traditional pension funds (Pensionskassen) and insurers.

”What they’re looking for our strategies which provide a high degree of diversification accompanied by decent risk-adjusted returns,” Theisinger said. “Andreas Köster will, along with the institutional clients, help develop such strategies and tailor them to their needs.”

Separately, First Private KAG, an asset management boutique in Frankfurt, said its institutional funds had inflows of €700m in the first half of 2005, bringing its total assets under management to €2bn.

First Private, which specialises in a quantitative approach to investing, attributed the inflows to a “more positive market environment” and strong demand for two of its European equity funds.

First Private was launched in April 2003 following a management buyout of Citigroup AM’s German institutional arm.