Korea's NPS loses CIO

The pension fund said in a statement that Myun-Wook Kang, who took up his position in early 2016, would be departing. It added that the process had begun to identify a replacement.

The development comes less than a fortnight after NPS revoked the appointment of Jae-Sang Kim as global head of alternatives due to a discrepancy on his resume. The discrepancy related to Kim’s stated and actual roles with Meritz Asset Management. Kang was CEO of Meritz prior to joining NPS.

NPS increased its alternatives allocation from 10.7% to 11.4% over the course of 2016 – which equates to additional capital of KRW9 trillion ($7.9 billion) – as total assets hit KRW558.3 trillion. Investment in offshore funds increased KRW9.4 trillion to KRW41.7 trillion in 2016, while the domestic pool declined by KRW400 billion to KRW21.9 trillion.

Within the global alternatives pool, other alternatives – which includes private equity – accounts for KRW11.4 trillion. This compares to KRW9.1 trillion for private equity alone in 2015. Real estate remains the largest alternatives asset class with KRW19 trillion. NPS has a further KRW10.3 trillion in infrastructure and KRW931 billion in hedge funds.

The other alternatives share of the domestic portfolio is KRW7.7 billion, down from KRW8.2 billion in 2015, while KRW5.9 trillion in invested in real estate and KRW8.3 trillion in infrastructure.

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• Topics
• North Asia
• LPs
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• South Korea
• National Pension Service (Korea)
• Appointments