Korea's NPS seeks new CIO as Ahn ends term Oct. 18

South Korea’s National Pension Service (NPS) is looking for a new chief investment officer (CIO) as former CIO Ahn Hyo-joon’s term ended on Oct. 18.

The world’s third-largest pension fund, managing 882.7 trillion won ($624.3 billion) in assets as of end-June, will begin the procedures to recruit a new CIO from as early as November. 

Until it selects a new CIO, Park Seong-tae, managing director at the fund's Investment Strategy and Responsible Investment & Governance, will serve as acting CIO.

Ahn was the longest-serving CIO in the pension fund's history, holding the post for four years. He took office in October 2018 for a two-year term and served two consecutive one-year terms.

Under his leadership, NPS achieved an 11.31% return on investment in 2019, its highest historical annual return. The institutional investor posted 9.7% and 10.86% returns in 2020 and 2021, respectively.

But the pension had an 8% negative return during the first half of this year as the Federal Reserve continued to shrink its balance sheet and global supply chains were disrupted amid the Russia-Ukraine war, NPS stated in August. The pension fund's assets under management dropped to 887.2 trillion won as of end-June from 948.7 trillion won as of end-2021.

Acting CIO Park is expected to be one of the CIO candidates as NPS, where 20 investment managers resigned in the first half of this year, is likely to tap from its internal professional base to boost the morale of its fund management employees.

On the other hand, some market watchers say the pension fund will hire an external professional who will accelerate President Yoon’s public pension fund reform plans, which aim to improve the sustainability of pensions in one of the world’s fastest-aging countries.

The pension fund is highly likely to tap a government official for the post as the NPS chairman and the minister of health and welfare, who is responsible for administering NPS’ fund management, are both from Korea’s finance ministry, said a mutual aid association CIO on condition of anonymity.

Write to Jun-Ho Cha at chacha@hankyung.com
Jihyun Kim edited this article.