(June 19, 2014) — The CEO of the CERN pension fund has taken over as chairman of the investment committee at Swiss fund manager Lombard Odier’s pension fund, aiCIO has learned.
Theodore Economou, who has led the pension fund for scientists and other staff at the CERN laboratories in Geneva since 2009, will conduct the first meeting in this new role next week. Economou, who has twice featured on aiCIO’s Power 100 list of influential investors, remains at the helm at CERN.
“We welcome Mr Economou as chairman of the investment committee of the Lombard Odier pension scheme,” Hubert Keller, managing partner at Lombard Odier, told aiCIO. “He shares our conviction that investors must concentrate on risk to build stable portfolio returns over time. We’ve been running our pension fund on a risk-based footing since 2009 and Mr Economou’s experience in setting risk budgets in his work on CERN’s pension fund will be a valuable complement.”
Economou took over the full-time investment role of the CERN pension last year following the departure of former CIO Gregoire Haenni. However, from the outset he had worked with Haenni and was integral in reforming the portfolio the pair inherited in 2009. At that time, the fund had a portfolio divided 60% to risk assets and 40% to bonds. It was 60.5% funded on an IAS19 basis, according to its accounts.
“We look at risk management as two processes,” Economou told aiCIO last year. “One: the overall risk management process, showing us the acceptable risk constraints. This tells us what the size of the sandbox we can play in is.”
The Lombard Odier pension fund has been the testing ground for some of its products—including some if its smart beta approaches. The CHF1.5 billion ($1.67 billion) fund was a runner up in a corporate pension category at aiCIO’s European Innovation Awards.
Economou also sits on the investment advisory committee of the Virginia Retirement System in the US.
Related content: Power 100 Theodore Economou & CERN CIO Steps Aside