Ben Funnell, the former co-head of the European Strategy Team at Morgan Stanley, is to join independent asset management company GLG Partners.

Funnell, who joined the European Strategy Team at Morgan Stanley in 1997, and was co-head of the group (with Teun Draaisma) between October 2003 and February 2006, is joining GLG as a fund manager and will work with Noam Gottesman on GLG's mixed asset fund strategies.  

Funnell has a wealth of experience in equity market direction, sector rotation and stock selection, and his successes in the field are reflected by the performance of the European Model Portfolio, which outperformed its benchmark by an average of over 300bps annually under his joint management with Draaisma. He was also a member of the bank's Global and Individual Investor Group Allocation Committees, having originally joined the firm as a transport analyst before moving on to the European Strategy Group.

Before joining Morgan Stanley, Funnell, who holds a BA in modern languages from Durham University, worked in corporate restructuring for the management consultancy practice of Coopers & Lybrand.

"We are very pleased to welcome Ben to GLG Partners,' says partner and co-Chief Executive Emmanuel Roman. 'Ben's experience and exceptional track record will prove invaluable. We are delighted that he has chosen to join GLG Partners and view this as yet another example of the top quality talent that is being drawn to the firm."