Hamilton Osborne King's investment subsidiary is losing its top management to Goodbody Stockbrokers.

The move comes as competition intensifies among brokers, banks, property firms and specialist advisers for a share of the lucrative market for syndicated property investments for private clients.

The Hamilton Osborne King (HOK) team raised €40 million in equity from Irish investors last year, but the property firm made light of the defections, stating that it was "business as usual" in the subsidiary.

The managing director of this business, Michael Moriarty, and associates Claire Hughes and Gillian O'Dowd are to join Goodbody as it ramps up activity in the property market.

Mr Moriarty, formerly of the private banking division at Bank of Ireland, will join Goodbody's high net worth wealth management team. Ms Hughes and Ms O'Dowd will join the broker's property investment unit.

With Irish investors flooding money into international property, Goodbody plans to ramp up its activity in the international markets.

The broker's head of the private clients, Eamon Glancy, said the HOK team had put together 13 deals in the US and Europe in the past two years, "areas where Goodbody has not invested before".

Upcoming deals included two tax-driven private hospital developments in Dublin for which the broker needed to raise a total of €40 million in equity, he said.

The HOK managing director Paul McNeive said: "HOK investors has been trading very well. We have been planning a reorganisation for some time and indeed we have been interviewing replacements for Michael Moriarty's position over the past number of months."