South Korea's National Pension Service has decided to move beyond the fund's initial allocations to fund of hedge funds vehicles in 2016 to make direct investments in hedge funds.
Hyo-Joon Ahn, the 667.4 trillion won ($560.5 billion), Jeonju-based pension giant's chief investment officer, speaking at an investment conference in Seoul on May 15, said NPS plans to commit 2 trillion won to direct investments in hedge funds.
NPS's fund management committee made the decision May 3, opening the way for direct investments, an NPS spokesman confirmed in an email.
The fund's most recent annual report, for the year ended Dec. 31, 2017, showed a total of 1.13 trillion won of investments in overseas fund of hedge funds vehicles — for a weight of less than 20 basis points of NPS's total assets of 667.4 trillion won as of February. The fund's annual report for the year ended Dec. 31, 2018 is due in June.
The spokesman declined to comment regarding the time span for deploying the 2 trillion won mentioned by Mr. Ahn.
