KoreaÆs Government Employees Pension Service hires CIO

The Government Employees Pension Service of Korea (GEPS) has installed Kwon Jae-woan as its new chief investment officer, following the surprise resignation of his predecessor in January.

Kwon joins from Citi where he was in charge of the trust business division, included managing up to $50 billion in securities on behalf of clients. He previously worked at Koram (Hanmi) Bank, which was acquired by Citi in 2004.

He takes over the position previously held by Chung Kyung-soo, who resigned last month after spending less than a year at GEPS. Chung's background includes serving as CIO at Woori Credit Suisse Asset Management, as CIO at the Korean Federation of Community Credit Cooperatives and in the London rep office of Samsung Life Insurance.

Chung has now departed to serve as chief executive at Atinum Partners, a prominent family office. Atinum Partners was founded and is owned by Lee Min-joo, a private investor. Atinum has $1.5 billion of assets under management, and its investments include a stake in London-listed Sterling Energy, as well as many commercial properties in Korea.

GEPS has AUM of about $8 billion, of which $5 billion is invested in financial instruments -- the portion that Kwon manages. The institution's global investments are mainly domestic bonds and stocks, with less than 1% allocated to alternative investments such as private-equity and real-estate funds.

Kwon says he intends to expand GEPS's global exposures and broaden its asset-class mix, but he declined to go into more detail before having the chance to settle into the new role.