CIOs ditch super funds in favour of sovereign wealth

A former LGIASuper investment chief is the second investment professional to depart Australia recently to take up a job in an offshore sovereign wealth fund.

Troy Rieck has been appointed chief investment officer at Emirates Investment Authority based in Abu Dhabi.

Rieck left LGIA  at the end of last year ahead of the integration of LGIAsuper and Energy Super with Suncorp Wealth to create a $30 billion fund.

Before his two years with the Queensland-based industry fund, he was head of investment at Equipsuper for over four years and managing director, of global multi-assets at QIC for the 13 years before that.

Earlier, Rieck was head of investment at Suncorp Group.

Commenting on his new role with the Emirates Investment Authority, he said it was an "exciting opportunity - exciting enough for me to pack up my life into a few suitcases and move to another country to live and work."

Sovereign wealth funds appeal to investment specialists for several reasons, chief of which is the freedom to invest in opportunities without having to think about monthly peer surveys and annual APRA benchmarks.

The freedom to be an investor rather than a product manager is also at the top of Nader Naeimi's wish list.

He was recently promoted to portfolio manager and head of multi assets, global macro at US774 billion Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC.

Naeimi joined eleven months ago as a senior vice president and portfolio manager after taking three months of gardening leave after leaving AMP Capital, where he spent 21 years, most recently as head of dynamic markets.

He argued that an extreme focus on short-term performance, constant peer comparisons lead to bad investment decisions.
"It's is so refreshing that I don't have to deal with this here at GIC. Critical thinking and foresight are well appreciated here," he said.

Other industry fund investment chiefs leaving the superannuation sector include Bruce Tomlinson, who recently resigned from the Australian Retirement Trust to join Andrew Forrest's Minderloo Foundation and Simon Mather, who landed at EWM Group in April.

Tomlinson pointed to the difference between the Foundation and a super fund, saying the Foundation's capital will be invested to have a positive impact, not just achieve a return outcome.