The investment house has amalgamated teams in Europe and Asia and hired two senior managers, while announcing the departure of another.

AXA Investment Managers has unveiled a raft of changes to its emerging markets fixed income team and has merged its debt teams in Paris and London with the Asian team based in Hong Kong. This creates a single group of six portfolio managers, two credit analysts and a research assistant. Meanwhile, Damien Buchet, head of emerging markets fixed income, has decided to leave AXA IM in order to pursue a new opportunity, the firm said.

The firm has appointed Sailesh Lad and Olga Fedotova to the London-based group. Lad has been named a senior portfolio manager within AXA IM’s GEM fixed income team. He previously worked at Ignis Asset Management where he was an emerging markets debt fund manager with responsibility for managing both the external and local currency debt positions within the team’s portfolios – representing assets of close to $1 billion prior to the acquisition of Ignis by Standard Life. Between 2006 and 2012, Lad was part of the emerging markets team at Henderson Global Investors and moved with a team to Ignis in 2012. Prior to joining Henderson, he worked in execution at BlueBay Asset Management (2002-2006) and Moore Capital Management (1999-2002).

Fedotova has been appointed head of emerging market credit and joins AXA IM in August. She previously worked at UniCredit where she managed a team of credit analysts covering emerging market corporate and financial issuers from 2012.

As a result of Buchet’s departure, Lad will take over as lead portfolio manager on AWF Emerging Market Short Duration and AWF Global Emerging Market Bonds, working with Buchet until his departure in September. Jim Veneau, head of the Asian fixed income team, and Chris Iggo, CIO of fixed income, will have joint responsibility for the management of the new GEM team until a successor for Buchet has been appointed.