Hamilton Lane hires 3 in London

Hamilton Lane has hired three people in its London office in response to growth in its European business.

Carolin Blank and Ahmed Khalil have joined the firm’s relationship management team as a principal and vice president, and Lali Sichinava has joined as a vice president on the business development team.

Blank has joined from Alvarez & Marsal, Khalil from BlackRock Private Equity Partners and Sichinava from Neuberger Berman.

“As a client-driven organisation we typically see our client teams grow as the number of clients we have in any particular region grows. The fact that we have added two senior hires at the same time just reflects the overall expansion,” Jim Strang, managing director and head of Europe at Hamilton Lane told Private Equity International.

The firm said the appointments are in response to a substantial increase in its European client base in 2016, with relationships more than doubling in Switzerland and Germany, where the firm said it has plans for further expansion. The fund-of-funds manager also said it added major clients in Italy and Finland last year.

Hamilton Lane said it deployed approximately €6.4 billion across twenty-seven deals in Europe last year including primary, secondary and co-investment accounts.

The hires follow a number of promotions last month including in the firm’s real assets, fund investment and co-investments teams.

Hamilton Lane, which has more than $250 billion in assets under advisement, began trading in March on the Nasdaq Global Select Market, raising a total of $190 million.