Concord Capital has hired analysts previously with Paradice Investment Management and Aberdeen Asset Management to build it a small caps portfolio.

Matthew Booker, who was co-head of small caps at Credit Suisse Asset Management prior to a short stint at Paradice, is currently constructing a new trust for Concord in partnership with Justin Farley. Formerly a small cap analyst with Deutsche Asset Management, Farley and the rest of that team – Sinclair Currie and Dawn Kanelleas – left following the takeover by Aberdeen Asset Management in June 2007. Concord Capital’s chairman, Richard Douglas, was unavailable for comment at presstime. Meanwhile, Ausbil Dexia and Souls Funds Management were yesterday announced as investment managers for a new Mariner Financial fund, the Small Companies Recovery Fund. Mariner executive chair, Bill Ireland, said the fund hoped to “;benefit from recovery in the small companies market following the significant volatility and sell-down over the last six months”;.