ONE MORE THING:STAFF AT the former Bank of Ireland Asset Management (Biam, now trading as SSgA) have clearly made a positive impression on their new employers, judging by a clutch of recent appointments by State Street Global Advisers. Peter Wood, who took over as chief executive of the Irish business when it changed hands for €57 million at the turn of the year, has been appointed to State Street's European executive committee.

Chris Johns, Biam’s former chief investment officer and interim chief executive, is now in charge of all of SSgA’s fundamental equities. Enda McMahon has been appointed head of compliance for SSgA’s European operation, while Niall O’Leary is head of product engineering for the region.

David Furey has been appointed senior cash product engineer on the fixed income side, and Lindsay McMillan has been appointed senior global fundamental equity product engineer.

Greg Ehret, who heads SSgA’s activities in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, told me the changes reflected State Street’s confidence in the Irish asset manager.

“Before the acquisition, there were 112 people in Ireland, and I believe we have slightly more than that on staff now,” he said. “We had a number of job openings within SSgA, regional jobs for our European business, which have gone to key Biam staff. They had a lot of top-quality people whose career opportunities weren’t what they could have been at Bank of Ireland.”