Blackstone Establishes Physical European Presence

Blackstone Alternative Asset Management (BAAM), a unit of The Blackstone Group of New York, has hired two executives to serve the company’s European institutional clients and help identify alternative investment managers, Blackstone announced yesterday.
The company hired Nicola Marie Meaden as managing director and Valerie Benard as director. The move establishes a BAAM office in Europe, as the two executives will work out of The Blackstone Group International’s London office. Previously, BAAM’s European clients were served out of the firm’s New York office.

Before joining BAAM, Meaden served as CEO of Tremont TASS (Europe) Limited, where she managed all non-U.S. activities for Tremont Advisors, mainly in Europe and Japan. At Tremont TASS she was responsible for managing and expanding the firm’s investment advisory services, launching offshore proprietary products, identifying and researching marketable alternative managers, and managing TASS Research. She founded TASS Investment Research in 1990 and, when it was acquired by Tremont in 1999, she stayed on as chairman of the new entity.

Benard also joins Blackstone from Tremont TASS where she served as business development director. There, she was responsible for managing the sales and marketing of investment advisory services and hedge funds of funds.

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