이 기사는 2020년 01월 15일 08시00분 thebell에 표출된 기사입니다

South Korea’s National Pension Service (NPS) has restructured its alternative investment department based on geographies. Market watchers find this movement positive as the pension fund can bolster its professionalism in overseas investment.

At the beginning of 2019, the state pension fund divided its alternative investment department into three divisions based on asset classes: private equity, real estate and infrastructure. A year later, according to sources familiar with the matter on January 10, it has again divided each division into three teams based on regions – Asia, Europe and the Americas – creating a total of nine teams under three divisions. The latest move marks the pension fund’s plan to build alternative investment strategies based on its global portfolio in the long term. With the pension fund’s exposure to alternative assets showing an upward trend, NPS has discussed in recent years the need to enhance its region-focused expertise.

Even small changes in the NPS’ organization draw market participants’ keen attention, considering its huge amount of assets.

NPS’ recent move is likely to have limited impact on domestic asset management firms. With domestic investments accounting for most of private equity investments in Asia, it won’t be much more than just a name change.

In the meanwhile, market’s expectations on the expansion of overseas investment and enhancing regional expertise are relatively high. Even before the latest move, NPS has had persons in charge of each of the regions and they rotate after serving a certain amount of time.

Under the latest reorganization, individual teams will be responsible for one region and they will have the in-depth expertise in the region. They also may be able to take a region-focused approach in accordance with each region’s different policies and custom.

Some say that NPS went through the structural changes in a bid to resolve an issue of personnel congestion.

Once the most prestigious and secure public job has lost its appeal due to the congestion for personnel and the relocation of its headquarters for fund management from Seoul to Jeonju. The pension fund’s headcounts decreased dramatically over the past few years. Thus, NPS’ latest reorganization is intended partly to add one manager position to each team so that it can resolve the personnel congestion issue.

“The main purpose [of the reorganization] would be to boost its professionalism and foster networks in overseas markets amid growing overseas alternative assets, but I think it had to add manager positions to solve the personnel congestion problem,” said an investment management firm official.

(By reporter Han Hee-yeon)