

Maria Daniels and Alex Soulsby were named derivatives fund managers at F&C Asset Management, according to Jason Hollands, director and head of communications at F&C Asset Management. Both positions are new. Ms. Daniels and Mr. Soulsby will be based in London and report to Richard Watts, director and co-head of asset-liability management and insurance. The appointments expand the firm's liability-driven investment team to nine. F&C plans to launch a range of eight to 10 pooled swaps funds in the United Kingdom later this year. It already offers similar strategies in the Netherlands, where pooled swaps funds have a total of about €500 million ($630 million) in assets. Ms. Daniels was a derivatives specialist in fixed-income products at Barclays Capital. Mr. Soulsby had worked as an interest rate specialist with JPMorgan. Barclays Capital and JPMorgan spokesmen could not be reached by press time for additional comment.