TOBAM, the ‘anti-benchmark’ asset manager, has hired Phillippe Bigeard as head of business development for the firm’s home market of France.

While TOBAM has an entrenched global client base across Europe, the US and Asia, Mr Bigeard has been brought on board to target French insurance companies, wealth managers and banks. French investors currently account for 5% of TOBAM’s total AUM.

The firm’s CEO Yves Choueifaty, told Fundeye recently that market cap benchmarks are irrational as they are just the result of active managers stock picks and he favours a maximum diversification approach. He also compared quantitative easing to markets getting hooked on drugs which as we’ve seen makes normalisation of monetary policy a difficult task.

Mr Bigeard’s appointment is the latest in a series of developments that marks a new phase of TOBAM’s growth in France. In 2018, the firm signed a distribution partnership with distribution platform MyFunds Office, followed by the expansion of the Anti-Benchmark Multi-Asset offering to IFAs and distributors in May 2019.

Mr Bigeard joins from CACEIS, where he had served as group head of product marketing for the past two years and was responsible for launching a new Marketing function. Prior to this, he was Business Development Director for seven years, overseeing the new businesses, the client satisfaction and sales strategy for 100 French institutional clients and 60 non-resident asset managers.

Prior to joining CACEIS in 2003 as senior sales manager, Mr Bigeard worked for a couple of years at Credit Agricole Indosuez Luxembourg as sales covering European asset managers, family offices and private banks.

TOBAM manages almost $9 billion.