The former head of institutional sales at Credit Suisse Asset Management (CSAM), John Maragiannis, will next month take a senior distribution role after nearly a year out of the industry.

Maragiannis will from February 1 assume the role of ‘director of distribution’ at Credit Agricole Asset Management, reporting to country head Richard Borysiewicz. The sole sales and marketing presence for the $1 billion-plus raised by Credit Agricole AM out of Australia so far, Borysiewicz said Maragiannis was attracted to the firm for the same reasons he had been. “;You’re starting with a clean slate in Australia, not cleaning up someone else’s mess, and you’re representing a huge and well-resourced global organisation with a wide range of quality products,”; he said. Maragiannis will focus on potential institutional and multimanager clients for Credit Agricole AM’s global fixed interest, emerging market equity, hedge fund-of-fund and structured products, as well as its ‘Var8’ absolute return fund, based on a blend of non-OECD bonds, currency and equity. Maragiannis left CSAM in March 2006 after a couple of years, prior to which he had run institutional sales for Schroder Investment Management.