MetLife CIO Steven Goulart to Retire in August

MetLife Inc. announced that CIO Steven Goulart will retire at the end of August after more than 17 years with the company. He is also president of MetLife Investment Management, the firm’s institutional asset management business with approximately $600 billion in total assets under management.

“I want to congratulate Steve on his retirement and thank him for his myriad contributions, which have helped MetLife keep its promises to clients and build a leading institutional asset manager,” MetLife’s president and CEO, Michel Khalaf, said in a release. “Steve has been instrumental in the design of our enterprise strategy and in the progress we have made in delivering on our commitments.”

According to MetLife, Goulart is retiring because of the company’s mandatory age-65 retirement policy. However, MetLife has waived that policy in the past, such as in 2016 for Steven Kandarian, then chairman, president and CEO, who retired three years later.

The company also announced that after Goulart’s departure, MetLife Chief Financial Officer John McCallion will take over leadership of MetLife Investment Management, while Chief Risk Officer Marlene Debel will lead MetLife Insurance Investments. Ramy Tadros, currently regional president of MetLife’s U.S. business, will lead MetLife Holdings.

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MetLife announced a search for a successor to Goulart as president of MetLife Investment Management, intending to consider both internal and external candidates. The position will report to McCallion and lead the institutional asset management business, with clients including pension plans, sovereign wealth funds, endowments, foundations, insurance companies and corporate plans.

Goulart joined MetLife in 2006 as a senior vice president to lead the company’s mergers and acquisitions unit and rose to senior managing director and head of MetLife’s portfolio management. He was named treasurer in 2009 before being promoted to CIO in 2011, overseeing both the MetLife general account portfolio and its investment management business for unaffiliated institutional investors.

In 2012, Goulart led the launch and development of MetLife Investment Management, and in 2017, he oversaw the transition of Brighthouse Financial Inc.’s $80 billion investment portfolio management to MetLife, as well as the $250 million acquisition of investment manager Logan Circle Partners from Fortress Investment Group.

Prior to working at MetLife, Goulart was a senior managing director in Bear Stearns’ financial institutions group. Prior to joining Bear Stearns in 2001, he was a managing director in Morgan Stanley’s global insurance group, where he co-led U.S. client coverage of the industry. Before that, he was a managing director in the financial institutions group at Merrill Lynch, starting out in the fixed-income division.

McCallion has been MetLife CFO since 2018 and previously served as treasurer, in regional and business CFO roles and as head of investor relations. Debel, who joined the company in 2011 as treasurer, was named CRO in 2019 after previously leading MetLife’s retirement and income solutions business.

Chuck Scully will continue to lead investment strategy for the MetLife general account, serving as CIO of MetLife Insurance Investments and reporting to Debel.

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Tags: chief investment officers, Chuck Scully, CIO, Endowments, John McCallion, Marlene Debel, MetLife, MetLife Investment Management, Michel Khalaf, Pension Plans, Ramy Tadros, retire, Steven Goulart

Elizabeth Fernando

Elizabeth Fernando, the new CIO at the U.K.’s National Employment Savings Trust pension fund, is committed to maintaining the same strategy that proved successful under her predecessor, Mark Fawcett.

That means moving into alternative investments and hardy support for renewable energy investments, as seen by the fund’s pressure on Shell to honor the oil giant’s commitment to shrink its carbon-fuel emphasis.

“I see more of the same” for Nest’s policy direction, Fernando says in an interview following her April elevation to the top investing job. “Mark and I will continue working close together,” with the former CIO having input into asset allocation, she says. Fawcett will remain in his role as the CEO of Nest Invest, the pension scheme’s Financial Conduct Authority-authorized subsidiary.

By all accounts, Nest (assets: $36 billion) has had a good performance record. Witness the quarterly report for its flagship 2040 retirement fund, whose allocation is relatively close to the classic 60-40 equity-debt split: It had a 7.3% annual return over the 10 years ending in March, more than a percentage point ahead of the 60-40 Morningstar average for the same period.

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Fernando joined Nest in 2020, became deputy CIO in 2021 and has 25 years of investment experience. She was named a CIO NextGen leader in 2022. Before Nest, she was head of equities at the U.K.’s Universities Superannuation Scheme.

She says the fund’s investment “teams are good,” so little change is needed, other than some small alterations about “reporting lines.” About half the fund is in public equities, and Nest is gradually moving that into alts such as real estate and private equity. She is aiming to raise allocation to alts, which she refers to as “illiquids,” to 30%, from around 18% now. “We are going at a pace where we can find attractive opportunities,” she says.

One area in disfavor at Nest is emerging markets, in which the fund has slightly less than 5% in debt. “The risk premium is not high enough to compensate” for problems in this area, Fernando indicates. Indeed, some smaller EM nations, such as Ghana and the Bahamas, sponsor bonds that are selling at a substantial discount, with yields in the low teens. Fawcett had moved EM investments to underweight, she notes.

In assessing EM investing, Fernando focused on China, which makes up the largest chunk of the equity-centered MSCI Emerging Market Index (almost 30%), despite its status as the world’s second biggest economy. She expresses wariness about China’s “deep-seated problems with property,” which is over-built and is suffering from slumping prices in both commercial and home sales. Beijing’s tighter regulations on business and data, “showing the Chinese consumer is cautious,” give her pause.

Fernando registers disappointment at Shell, which she criticizes for not pursuing more aggressive emissions standards. Nest, which has just a fraction of 1% of Shell’s shares, teamed up with other climate-minded institutions in voting to urge Shell to match its 2030 target to the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The group’s resolution on the subject garnered 20% of the vote, the same as the year before. Nest also joined in on a minority vote against Shell Chair Andrew Mackenzie. The May investors’ meeting was marked by chants and songs from some attendees objecting to company policy.

Shell has a “reluctance to follow through and has gone off track somehow,” Fernando says. “We’re not comfortable with the answers we’re getting” from the company. Shell’s investor relations staff deals with dissenting shareholders “with a dismissive tone,” she adds, and Shell has increased its budget for oil and natural gas exploration.

For its part, Shell has proclaimed its goal of meeting a zero-emissions standard by 2050 and has touted its commitment to eliminate gas flaring and linking some staffers’ pay to lowering carbon emissions 20% by 2030. Shell plans to spend some $40 billion on oil and gas production and trading from 2023 through 2025, compared with $35 billion previously, it announced. Shell did not respond to a request for comment on Fernando’s remarks.