Zheng Kongdong, head of a China Investment Corp. department that specializes in publicly traded stocks, left the nation's $653 billion sovereign wealth fund, said three people with knowledge of the matter.
Mr. Zheng resigned from CIC to pursue other career opportunities, said one of the people who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Larry Zhang was appointed acting head of the department, the three people said.
CIC, based in Beijing, didn't immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
The public equities allocation increased 8.4 percentage points during 2013 to 40.4% of CIC's overseas holdings as the end of that year, according to the latest information posted on its website.
Mr. Zheng was made head of the CIC department in 2009, which then oversaw direct investments in public equities and allocations to hedge funds of funds. In a reorganization two years later, the unit shed the hedge funds responsibility and was put in charge of allocations to external long-only managers.
Mr. Zhang served as a senior adviser to China's state pension fund manager, National Council for Social Security Fund, on global investments and once ran his own China-focused hedge fund JT Capital Management.
About 46% of its public equity holdings were in U.S. stocks and another 37% in other developed markets, according to the annual report.
The CIC in June vowed to improve how it manages its overseas portfolio after state auditors found dereliction of duty by managers and inadequate due diligence in 12 investments made between 2008 and 2013, leading to losses.
