Kerry Duffain has joined Pioneer Investments from Citigroup as Head of Investment Consultant Relations in Europe.

Pioneer Investments stated that the appointment "bolstered its plans to become a lead player in European institutional asset management."

Duffain joins from Citigroup Asset Management where she was Head of Consultant Relations EMEA for almost three years. Prior to that she was Head of Client Service Europe at JP Morgan Investment Management.

Duffain will report to Nigel Meir, Head of Institutional Sales and Distribution, UK and Scandinavia, and will be based in the company's London office. Duffain's role will see her take responsibility for investment consultant relationships and represent the group's activities and product offering to investment consultants throughout Europe. She will play an important role in the Group's strategy to increase its visibility amongst the consultant community and build its European institutional asset base.

Commenting on Duffain's hire, Meir said: "I am delighted that Kerry has decided to join us and am confident that her broad experience with the investment consultant community will heighten awareness of our capabilities in both traditional and alternative investments and allow us to increase our presence in this market."

Matteo Perruccio, Head of International, described the rationale behind the institutional drive: "We intend to be a major institutional player and 2005 will see us embark on a Europe-wide drive which will see us commit further resources to grow our assets in this area."

Background Note: Pioneer Investments is a global investment management group with over EUR 125 billion of assets under management as at 31 October 2004. It provides a wide range of investment solutions including mutual funds, alternative investments and structured products to clients that include institutions, corporations, intermediaries and private investors around the world.

The range of single, multi strategy and multi manager hedge funds are provided by Pioneer Alternative Investments (PAI) which has its main operations in London, Milan and New York, Dublin being the investment centre.

PAI was formed in 1998 as part of Pioneer Investments' aggressive growth strategy, recognising the increasing importance of the alternative investments industry. Since then PAI has built up a comprehensive range of alternative investment products which include single strategy, multi-strategy and funds of hedge funds. PAI's fund of hedge funds range was enhanced following the acquisition of the Momentum Group in 2002. It has one of the longest established low volatility multi manager hedge funds of funds, AllWeather which has provided consistent returns in all market environments. PAI had total assets under management of EUR 3.8 billion as at end of October 2004.