Korea's NPS taps Jun Ahn as real estate investment head

National Pension Service (NPS) of South Korea, the world’s third-largest pension fund, appointed Jun Ahn (Ahn Jun-sang) as its real estate investment head on Dec. 13, sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

The official announcement of the appointment will be made on Dec. 18, according to sources.

Ahn served as vice chief executive of Seoul-based real estate and infrastructure investment firm Yido for two years. He also worked for Samsung Securities Co. in Seoul from 2018 to 2020, where he served as alternative investment head.  

Prior to this, he spent six years at Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) Capital Markets from 2012 and five years at Wells Fargo Securities from 2007. Ahn also served as a director at the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) for four years from 2003.

He graduated from the master of professional studies (MPS) program in real estate at Cornell University and earned a bachelor's degree from the real estate department of Konkuk University in Seoul.

The appointment comes as a surprise as there is no previous case of recruiting an outside candidate for the pension fund’s alternative investment division head position that is not vacant, sources said.

NPS’ real estate division manages 52.1 trillion won ($40.2 billion) worth of assets across Korea and overseas as of the end of September. The unit, alongside private equity & venture and infrastructure divisions, is part of NPS’ alternative investment arm.

The pension giant’s assets under management amount to 984.2 trillion won as of end-September, of which 16.6% are alternative assets.

Oh Eun-jeong, who had led NPS’ real estate division since November 2021, has been recently transferred to the pension fund’s New York office head as Yoon Hye-young resigned as the US office’s acting chief in October, sources said.

Write to Byeong-Hwa Ryu at hwahwa@hankyung.com

Jihyun Kim edited this article.