AIB INVESTMENT Managers (AIBIM), the investment and asset management arm of the biggest banking group in the State, has embarked on a drive to build up its international client base by engaging staff to sell its products in New York and London.

The company, which has a total of €10 billion in assets under management for clients, aims with this initiative to double the $1 billion (€702.74 million) it manages for US, Asian and European groups within two or three years.

A division of the bank's capital markets unit, AIBIM has an active investment management philosophy. The company, led by managing director Frank O'Riordan, is likely to cite research by fund information and analysis agency Lipper in its efforts to develop business.

The company's AIB Select US Equity fund ranks among 36 of the 332 fund managers with funds in the Lipper US Equity Category that achieved top-quartile performance over one-year, three-year and five-year periods.

The fund also ranks among 18 of the 332 fund managers in the category to outperform the SP 500 Index by more than 2 per cent per annum over one-year, three-year and five-year periods.

The company has told potential clients that the top-performing funds have "consistently had a higher risk profile than the average fund" in the Lipper survey and the benchmark.

"AIB Select US Equity has achieved this same consistency of performance, but has done so without taking on the same level of risk," clients are told.