Korea sovereign fund's CIO resigns

Kee-Hong Rhee, who most recently led KIC's New York office, has been named acting CIO, local media reported, with Lee expected to stay on for a period in an advisory capacity.

Lee was appointed to serve a three-year term as CIO in 2012, becoming the first Korean national to get the job. He joined KIC four years earlier as head of the private markets group, having previously been head of investments at STIC Investments and in charge of the overseas investment team at Samsung Life.

Lee assumed Choi's responsibilities on an interim basis while KIC searched for a replacement CEO. In December it announced the appointment of Hong-Chul Ahn, who was auditor of the sovereign wealth fund between 2005 and 2008. Before taking up his new role, Ahn was an advisor at Macquarie Securities Korea.

KIC, which was established in 2005, had $56.6 billion under management at year-end 2012. Of this, 6.1% was deployed in alternative assets, 3.2% in special investments and 90.7% in traditional assets, including bonds, commodities, cash and equities. The $3.5 billion alternative assets portfolio is 31.4% private equity, 26.3% real estate, 38.5% hedge funds and 3.8% cash.

At the end of 2012, KIC's private equity investments had a net asset value of $1.01 billion and had delivered an annualized return of 10.80% since the program started in September 2009.

Lee told Bloomberg last year that KIC is planning to triple its alternative assets allocation to as much as 20% by 2016, spending $5-10 billion over the next three years.

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