William J. Coaker Jr. was hired as chief investment officer for the $18.5 billion San Francisco City & County Employees’ Retirement System, Norm Nickens, a spokesman for the pension fund, confirmed Tuesday.
Mr. Coaker was senior managing director for public equities at the University of California’s Office of the Chief Investment Officer.
This is his second stint at the San Francisco pension fund. Mr. Coaker served as a senior investment officer at the pension fund from 2005 to 2008.
“I am very honored and humbled to return to SFERS as their chief investment officer,” Mr. Coaker said in a statement. “I look forward to working with the board and staff to further build an outstanding investment division and to best serve the employees, retirees and beneficiaries who are relying on the investment decisions we make.”
Mr. Coaker will join the pension fund on Jan. 30. Bob Shaw, who has served as interim CIO since former CIO David Kushner left in October 2010, will return to his position as the pension fund’s managing director for public markets.
Mr. Coaker’s last day at UC will be Jan. 21, said university spokesman Dianna Klein in an e-mail. In the interim, she said Paul Teng, an investment officer will take over the position until a permanent replacement is found.
“At the moment, we are not advertising the position as we feel that replacing Mr. Coaker is better left to our yet-to-be-named chief investment officer,” Ms. Klein said. “I anticipate that there will be an external search for a successor to Mr. Coaker.”
Marie N. Berggren retired as University of California’s chief investment officer in July, and the university is in the process of conducting a search for her replacement.