Centaurus Capital, the $2.5bn (€2.1bn) London-based hedge fund manager which this month hired Lehman Brothers' co-head of European investment banking, has now appointed Roberto Casoni, a top-rated equity research analyst at Citigroup.

Casoni led Citigroup's research team in Italy from 1998 to 2002 immediately before becoming overall head of European small/mid-capitalisation equity research. He joins Centaurus as a senior analyst.