Xavier Thoma, formerly a vice-president in Morgan Stanley's mergers and acquisitions department, has taken the unusual step of moving to a fund of hedge funds firm, Globefin Asset Management.

Thoma will be a director, responsible for developing Globefin's activities in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland. He spent three years at Morgan Stanley as a generalist working in the M&A team in London. Prior to that he was at JP Morgan for four years. It was at JP Morgan that he met Federico Moccia, who in 1998 was involved in setting up Globefin, which manages two funds of hedge funds.