RI People & Appointments, August 12: APG boosts responsible investment team

David Shammai has joined APG’s nine-member Responsible Investment team as Senior Corporate Governance Specialist to work on governance in capital market investments. He previously worked as Remuneration Consultant and in-house reward specialist in London. He was head of Head of Executive Reward Policy at Royal Bank of Scotland from 2009–2011.

Andrew Howard, the former co-head of investment bank Goldman Sachs’ GS Sustain broker research arm, is registered his own firm – called Didas Research Ltd. Howard told RI the firm is awaiting regulatory approval before it can offer investment advice. The new firm was incorporated on May 31, according to a filing at Companies House, the UK’s official companies registrar. Howard, who left his role at Goldman in June after six years with the investment bank, headed the GS Sustain team in London identifying long-term investment opportunities across global industries.

J. Safra Sarasin, the Swiss bank that specialises in sustainable investing, is opening a new sales office in Stuttgart, Germany, for private clients in Baden-Württemberg. Artur Montanhas, who has covered the region for Sarasin since 2009, will head the new office, which apart from him will have two other sales specialists. Sarasin also said it would close its sales operation in Nuremberg and move that staff to Stuttgart and Munich. The move coincides with rival private bank Notenstein hiring of a number of Sarasin staff including Frank Wettlauffer, its former head of institutional business in Germany. Announcement (German)

Niall O’Shea’s new title is Head of Responsible Investing at Royal London Asset Management (CIS) Ltd. (formerly The Co-operative Asset Management). It follows Royal London’s acquisition of the Co-operative Banking Group’s life insurance and asset management businesses earlier this month.Ibrahim Thiaw of Mauritania has been appointed as the new Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. He succeeds Amina Mohamed of Kenya in the role; he joined UNEP’s Senior Management Team in 2007 as Director of the Division of Environmental Policy Implementation. Announcement

John Kyriakopoulos, former managing director of Greece’s largest public pension fund, the Hellenic Pension Mutual Fund Management Company, will head up a new investor rights law operation in Athens. It is being set up by law firm Grant & Eisenhofer and Boston-based Kyros Law “to help aggrieved investors in Greece bring actions in both Greece and in the US” stemming from the country’s economic meltdown.

Richard van Ovost is reportedly leaving his role as head of international real estate investments at €90.2bn Dutch pension scheme administrator and asset manager MN Services after eight years in the post. IPE.com quoted a spokesman as saying Hein Brans, director of asset management, would replace van Ovost temporarily.

Philip Green, the former CEO at United Utilities, the largest listed water company in the UK, is to lead a consortium backed by the Church of England and others to bid for 315 Royal Bank of Scotland branches. He will take over from John Tiner, the former Financial Services Authority head. Former Lloyds Banking Group executive John Maltby will be chief executive of the bid.

The Climate Bonds Initiative, the body which promotes environmental fixed income, is recruiting a Standards programme coordinator. The position is based in London and the salary is competitive NGO rate.