Citigroup’s capital introduction division has tapped Jim Kelly, director of pension relations, to join current chief Beth Neely in leading the unit. 

Neely hired the former director onto her team just months after arriving herself from an executive director role at UBS. The two have worked closely together over the last three years, and bring deep pension expertise to the helm of Citi’s cap intro program.  

“We have complementary skills,” Kelly told CIO. “Pensions will continue to be a primary focus—even more than they have been.”

Fostering Citi’s cap intro business, according to the new co-head, is as much a matter of meeting hedge fund clients’ needs as delivering value to investors themselves. Indeed, many of the introductions that Kelly has facilitated connect capital with capital. 

In addition to a new leadership structure and refined pension focus, Citi’s cap intro team has shed three members in recent months. It also onboarded Blake Benke, a former allocator with RBC’s alternative asset group.  

Long-term allocation trends have bolstered alternatives managers’ demand for cap intro services overall, and introductions to pension funds in particular. Hedge funds take up a larger portion of the average public retirement portfolio than ever, and the share of these investments made directly has risen steadily.

According to Kelly, investors’ increasing desire to invest directly rather than through a fund-of-funds has led to greater reliance by both asset owners and managers on capital introduction services, another intermediary.