STANDARD Life Investments has picked an internal candidate as head of global equities.

Mikhail Zverev, who has been with the business since 2007, takes the position vacated by Lance Phillips, who left SLI earlier this month and to join Legal & General.

Mr Zverev graduated in physics in his home of St Petersburg in Russia before studying accounting and finance at the London School of Economics.

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He started his career as an investment banking analyst at Trigon Capital before stints at Schroder Salomon Smith and Barney and First State Investments.

At SLI he has managed its Global Equity Unconstrained Fund since July 2010

In his new post, Mr Zverev, who is based in Edinburgh, will report directly to SLI's head of equities, David Cumming.

Mr Cumming said: "Since Mikhail joined Standard Life Investments in 2007 he has proved himself as an excellent fund manager and investor, as well as building a strong individual performance track record in managing global equities. His appointment will ensure continuity and stability in terms of the delivery of our investment process and superior investment performance.

"I am confident he will provide effective leadership for the global equity team."

The appointment is the latest move in a number of hires, promotions and departures in recent weeks at SLI.

Global investment strategist Richard Batty and investment directors David Jubb and David Millar left to set up a new multi-asset team at Invesco Perpetual. That led to SLI's Ian Pizer transferring from the government bond team to multi-asset investing and Neil Richardson being given responsibility for overseeing equity strategies with the absolution return portfolio for multi-asset.