Pictet Asset Management has announced the appointments of Roman Gaiser as head of High Yield and Andres Sanchez Balcazar as co-head of the Global and Regional Bond team.

Gaiser was previously at Threadneedle Asset Management where he was senior portfolio manager and co-managed the EUR 3 billion Threadneedle European High Yield Bond franchise. He will join existing portfolio managers Alexander Baskov and Prashant Agarwal in the PAM Fixed Income team in April 2011.

Sanchez Balcazar joins from Western Asset Management where he was one of the senior portfolio managers responsible for global macro, asset and currency allocation. Before Western Asset Management, Sanchez Balcazar spent five years with Mercury/Merrill Lynch Investment Managers. He will join in March 2011 as co-head of the Global and Regional Bond team. The Global and Regional Bond team currently manage CHF 6 billion (£3.9 billion) of assets.

Sebastien Eisinger, CIO Fixed Income at PAM, comments: “These two senior appointments are part of our strategy to reinforce further our fixed income capabilities across both core and specialist sectors, and to capitalise on strong performance throughout 2010.”