Mark Hawtin will join GAM's London office on 1 October 2008 as investment director managing a global long/short equity mandate which will invest in a wide range of themes with an emphasis on innovation and change.

He was previously at Marshall Wace Asset Management where he was a Partner and Portfolio Manager managing one of Europe's largest technology, media and telecoms hedge fund.  

GAM's Multi-Manager team identified Mark as an exceptionally talented manager back in 1999 and invested in his Marshall Wace Eureka Interactive Fund at inception.

David Solo, Group Chief Executive Officer at GAM, says, "Mark's investment style is dominated by intrinsic value. He is a value investor who places great emphasis on fundamental, bottom up analysis with a systematic risk management overlay. Mark has identified a number of exciting themes as well as some further interesting opportunities to invest in companies whose shares have suffered unfairly from deleveraging resulting from the global credit crunch."

Hawtin says, "GAM's greatest attraction is its philosophy to allow in-house managers freedom to invest according to their own strategy and without the constraints of an Investment Committee or Chief Investment Officer. The supporting infrastructure and resources also mean that GAM's Fund Managers can focus entirely on managing their portfolios."

The appointment of Hawtin brings the total number of GAM in-house Investment Managers to 37 globally.

Hawtin was previously at Marshall Wace Asset Management where he was a Partner and Portfolio Manager managing one of Europe's largest technology, media and telecoms hedge fund until 2007. Since then he has been acting as a non-executive director and consultant to several listed corporates.