Alex Bacchus Appointed Acting CIO of NZ Super

The Guardians of NZ Superannuation, the board that oversees the NZ$75.810 billion ($46.39 billion) New Zealand Superannuation Fund, announced on Friday that it had appointed Alex Bacchus to serve as acting CIO of the fund, with an official recruitment process for a new permanent CIO beginning shortly.

NZ Super CIO Stephen Gilmore will be stepping down this month, leaving Auckland for Sacramento to become the next CIO of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System in July, an appointment that was announced in April.

At NZ Super, Bacchus is currently the head of strategic tilting, an asset allocation procedure involving a reversion investment strategy by which the fund adjusts its exposure to different asset classes according to changes in prices and long-term valuation signals. This is aimed at allowing the fund to weather short-term volatility while maintaining its long-term investment horizon. NZ Super has utilized the strategy since 2009, which Bacchus has led since 2014.

In March, it was announced that Jo Townsend would be appointed as CEO of NZ Super, succeeding Matt Whineray, who stepped down this past December.

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Prior to leading the fund’s strategic tilting group, Bacchus also worked on NZ Super’s risk and asset allocation teams. Before joining the Guardians in 2009, he was a director of derivatives at Goldman Sachs and a vice president and structured credit derivatives trader at Merrill Lynch.

Bacchus holds a bachelor of engineering degree in civil engineering from the University of Canterbury and a master of science designation in mathematics from City, University of London.

NZ Super aims to fund New Zealand’s universal superannuation, for which all the nation’s residents aged 65 and up are eligible. As of April 30, the fund has returned 13.65%, 8.49%, 10.22% and 9.87% annualized over the past one, five, 10 and 20 years, respectively.