Pioneer Alternative Investments has announced the appointment of Simon Gordon as a manager of US long/short equity strategies, reporting to Luca Mengoni, chief investment officer of the firm's single manager division.

Gordon is joining Pioneer from BAE Systems Pension Fund Investment Management, where he was most recently US equity fund manager and earlier assistant UK fund manager during an 11-year spell with the pension fund manager. Previously he spent two years with HSBC James Capel Investment Management.

'Simon's extensive experience in the investment industry and particularly in the US equity space makes him an ideal choice for this role,' Mengoni says. 'He will take responsibility for the US component of our existing product range and will work closely with European and Asian managers in the team to promote the cross-fertilisation of ideas among all equity areas, enhancing existing processes and leveraging the most promising investment cases.'

Established in 1999, Pioneer Alternative Investments offers a range of single-strategy, multistrategy and multi-manager hedge funds from its investment centre in Dublin and its other main operations in London and Milan. It had total assets under management exceeding EUR6.34bn at the end of April.

Pioneer Alternative Investments is the alternative investment management arm of Pioneer Investments, the investment management subsidiary of Italy's UniCredito group, which had EUR210.46bn in assets under management at the end of April.

The group, which has offices in 25 countries around the world and employs more than 2,300 staff, offers mutual funds, alternative investments and structured products to clients that include institutions, corporations, intermediaries and private investors, with institutional clients accounting for more than EUR53bn.