GERMANY - UK asset manager Gartmore has confirmed that Anke Frémion will step down as sales director in its Frankfurt office, effective March 31 2005.

Gartmore said Frémion, 35, was leaving Gartmore “of her own accord to take up a new challenge”. It said Frémion would not be replaced but that her duties would be taken up by the remaining staff in Frankfurt.

According to Gartmore, its seven-member team in Frankfurt is in charge of retail fund distribution and bancassurance for Germany, Switzerland, Austrian and Luxembourg.
Gartmore’s institutional fund business for Europe is handled by its headquarters in London.

Gartmore declined to disclose details for its institutional business in Germany. The last German institutional mandate publicised was a small equity one from Bayerische Versorgungskammer (BVK), the country’s largest pension fund, in late 2002.

Gartmore named Vivina Berla as its new head of institutional business for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) earlier this month.

Berla, 46, was formely at Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, where she spent ten years as part of the Alternative Investment Group and managing institutional clients’ activities across EMEA.