A new general for Korea's military pension fund

South Korea’s $7 billion Military Mutual Aid Association (MMAA) has appointed a new chairman, Kim Jin-hoon, effective yesterday, for a three-year term.

Before being appointed as MMAA’s 12th chairman, Kim served as a three-star general in the Korean army and graduated from the Korea Military Academy (KMA) in 1974. One of his previous key positions was local special warfare commander.

Kim stressed in his official inaugural address this week that the MMAA must accomplish three unavoidable tasks: stability of military members’ lives, stability of asset management, and flexibility in organisation management.

Regarding global investments, Kim said the global economic slowdown and low interest rates are long-term phenomena, and as such MMAA must generate satisfactory asset management performance for 170,000 MMAA members.

He did not give details of what this meant, other than to say decision-making processes need to be improved, along with portfolio risk management.

Kim took over the position from his predecessor Yang Won-mo, who retired on August 28, seven months earlier than his official term. At that time, local press reported that Yang retired due to health reasons, and his sudden retirement was regarded as an unusual case. The MMAA went through a public replacement process during the first week of September.