London-based hedge-fund marketing firm AdvantHedge has strengthened its team with the appointment of a new partner, Claude L'Heveder.

Before joining AdvantHedge, L'Heveder, who has 25 years experience in the investment business, spent nine years as head of Minerva Capital Management, a London-based research-driven investment firm specialising in advisory services to hedge funds and institutional investors.

Between 1990 and 1997, he was a director and country manager at Merrill Lynch in London, with responsibility for equity, equity-related and derivatives sales to French institutional clients.

Prior to joining Merrill Lynch, L'Heveder was an investment manager at Banque Indosuez in Paris where, in 1985, he was appointed head of US investments, responsible for various equity funds with assets totalling USD 350 million. A native Parisian and graduate of Sciences Politiques with an option in finance, he started his investment career as a financial analyst at Paris-based asset management firm BMI and is fluent in French and English and conversant in Italian.