BlackRock's head of the trading and liquidity strategies group in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Nigel Foster, is retiring after more than 25 years at the world's largest asset manager and its predecessors Mercury Asset Management and Merrill Lynch Investment Managers.

BlackRock has recruited former Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and Bank of America banker Tarek Mahmoud, who was one of the co-founders of merchant banking boutique Richmond Park alongside former DrKW chief executive Andrew Pisker in 2006, to fill Foster's role leading the Emea TLS group and overseeing the firm's trading operations and its cash and securities lending business.