GPIF Re-appoints Top Investment Officer After Seven Straight Quarters of Gains
(Bloomberg) -- Eiji Ueda was re-appointed to another term at the head of the world's largest pension fund after overseeing seven straight quarters of gains.
The former bond trader at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. was re-appointed to the position of chief investment officer of Japan's Government Pension Investment Fund for another two-year term, the fund said in a statement Friday.
Ueda, 54, was an unexpected choice when he took over from Hiromichi Mizuno in April 2020. Coming on board at the same time as fund President Masataka Miyazono, whose term ends in March 2025, the two joined just as global markets were being whipsawed by the outbreak of the pandemic.
Nonetheless Ueda has weathered the storm, with the fund posting gains every quarter since, including a 25%, 37.8 trillion yen ($311 billion) gain in his first full year that the fund described as “historic.” Assets increased to a record of almost 200 trillion yen as of the end of December.
Read more: An Ex-Goldman Bond Trader's Quiet Rise to Managing $1.6 Trillion
Unlike his outspoken predecessor, an active poster on Twitter and now a member of Tesla Inc.'s board of directors, Ueda has not publicly talked to the media during his term, and the GPIF has declined to make him available for interviews. Miyazono has said that he and Ueda have split their roles, with the president dealing with the public and the media.
The fund is likely to face headwinds in the second term of Ueda's career as a global tightening cycle takes off. Full-year performance results are due in July.
“Everything has been smooth sailing so far but the gains might not continue,” said Hiroaki Muto, an economist at Sumitomo Life Insurance Co. The Federal Reserve's tightening is raising economic concerns, he said.
After graduating from Tokyo University's department of engineering, Ueda joined Goldman Sachs in Tokyo in 1991 starting his career with the firm in bond trading. He worked with the firm's U.S. Treasuries trading department in New York, before returning to Japan in 1996 and becoming the head of Asia Pacific Macro Trading in 2004.
©2022 Bloomberg L.P.
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