Purdue Endowment CIO Moves Up | Chief Investment Officer

Scott Seidle Purdue University Scott Seidle, Assistant Treasurer, Purdue UniversityPurdue University has promoted its first-ever CIO Scott Seidle to assistant treasurer, giving him oversight of finance and accounting in addition to investments.

The Lafayette, Indiana-based university nabbed the state pension fund’s CIO David Cooper to take over as investment head. Cooper will report to his newly promoted predecessor, Seidle told CIO.

As vice president of finance and investments, Seidle said he will continue to oversee Purdue’s $2.5 billion endowment and $1.5 billion cash operating pool, in addition to his new responsibilities.

Purdue hired Seidle in 2005 to build its endowment into a diversified and modern portfolio. Over the last decade, the inaugural CIO diversified into hedge funds, private equity, natural resources, and venture capital. These asset classes represented 43% of the endowment’s value as of June 30, 2014.

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He also established a full-time investment office for managing the university’s cash and endowed assets.

Under Seidle’s leadership, the endowment grew by more than $1 billion, returning an annualized 7.7% over the 10 years ending last June.

“I was honored to accept additional responsibilities for the foundation,” he said.

The UK’s lifeboat fund for pensions is to insource its liability-driven investment (LDI) work after appointing its first dedicated head for the strategy.

The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) has hired Trevor Welsh from Aviva Investors as head of LDI, a newly created role. Welsh spent 17 years at Aviva, where he was most recently in charge of the Aviva Staff Pension Scheme’s LDI strategy. He will take up his new role in October.

“Taking in-house part of our LDI is a key step in updating our investment model and crucial in helping us meet our funding target and future aspirations,” said PPF CIO Barry Kenneth. “Trevor’s expertise in LDI will be invaluable to our development and I very much look forward to working together.”

Kenneth added that insourcing “will allow us greater control and capability” to manage the PPF’s growing asset portfolio.

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The PPF currently has several LDI managers overseen by an internal team, but does not run any money itself. Under Welsh’s leadership the fund will bring a portion of this money in-house.

Welsh has run fixed-income funds for Aviva Investors, and has 30 years’ experience of investing in the asset class.

Aviva Investors announced earlier today it had promoted insurance fund manager Neil Snyman to replace Welsh as head of LDI.

“The PPF is entering a hugely exciting phase in its growth as it starts to insource more of its investments and take greater control of the decision making process,” Welsh said.

The PPF has £22.6 billion in assets and pays pensions to 220,000 members of pension funds linked to bankrupt sponsors. In the 2014-15 financial year its investment portfolio returned 25.9%, giving the fund a surplus of £3.6 billion above its liabilities.

In February, the lifeboat fund hired Hans den Boer as chief risk officer. Chief Executive Alan Rubenstein described the role as “crucial” to the future success of the growing fund.

In May this year, the fund won a CIO Europe Innovation Award after overhauling its portfolio and removing derivatives exposure.