Church of England Searching for New CIO

The church's current CIO will depart in April. 

The Church Commissioners of the Church of England announced on Wednesday that it is seeking a new CIO to manage the church’s 10-billion-pound ($12.61 billion) portfolio. 

The church’s current CIO, Tom Joy joined the organization in 2009. He is planning to step down in April for an unannounced opportunity. 

The Westminster-based professional will lead a team of 50 in the church’s investment office and will be in charge of investment strategy for the fund’s diversified portfolio. The CIO will work with “dual objectives of delivering strong returns so that the Church Commissioners can maximize its sustainable long-term funding support to the Church of England and be at the forefront of responsible investment globally,” according to the job posting.

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The fund manages 40% of its assets internally with the rest allocated to managers globally.

The job posting lists some of the following requirements for the position:

  • Minimum of 10-15 years of experience investing in public and/or private markets
  • Demonstrable strong investment track record
  • In sympathy with the work of the Church of England
  • Deep network of industry contacts to assist in thought leadership and investment idea sourcing
  • A philosophical alignment with the Church Commissioners’ approach to managing multi-asset portfolios

“The successful applicant will be a proven leader whilst also a low-ego team player able to nurture a strong values-based Investments team culture and adept in working with a complex network of internal and external relationships, trusted to act as a public-facing voice of the Church Commissioners,” the job posting states. 

The church’s portfolio has returned an annualized 10.2% over the past 10 years, according to the fund’s 2022 annual report. The fund allocates 28.9% of its portfolio to public equities, 13% to absolute return assets, 8.2% to private equity, 7.6% to cash and cash-like assets, 7.4% to defensive equities, 5.8% to venture capital, 5.2% to credit strategies, 4.9% to timberland, and single digit allocations to several other asset classes.  

The church’s CIO will join a fund that has a unique structure. According to the job posting, “The Church Commissioners’ for England is a statutory endowed charity managing over £10 billion of historic assets for the Church of England and an administrative body with regulatory and quasi-judicial duties. It has representatives of Church and State on its governing body and is answerable to Parliament and the General Synod of the Church of England. Financial returns are used to support the mission and ministry of the Church of England.”

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Nvidia Shows ‘Em: Explosive Results Boost Nervous Market

Before the chipmaker’s earnings release, stocks had been down.

If anyone doubted that tech stocks are the place to be, chipmaker Nvidia Corp.’s blowout results Wednesday, released after the market’s close, put a rest to that. The company’s stock vaulted 7% in after-hours trading.

Benefiting from its strong presence in the artificial intelligence semiconductor market, Nvidia posted $5.16 in adjusted earnings per share on revenue of $22.1 billion for its fourth quarter, way north of analysts’ consensus, from a Bloomberg survey, of $4.60 on $20.4 billion. Results were also stunning for the whole fiscal year, ending January 28, with EPS up 486%, versus the comparable period.

The nervousness about Nvidia that pulled the market into the red on Tuesday continued into Wednesday, with the Invesco QQQ Trust, an exchange-traded fund that is a benchmark for hot tech stocks, falling 0.4% by the close. After the earnings release, the QQQ leapt almost 1%.

Perhaps a feeling of this-is-too-good-to-be true had gripped investors before the release. Nvidia, which had advanced 40% this year, slipped 2% in Wednesday trading. The S&P 500 was also down for much of the day, closing up 0.13%, then rallied after hours.

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The company’s shares have done well over time, observed Larry Tentarelli, the chief technical strategist at Blue Chip Daily Trend Report, in a note. The good thing is that it is still relatively inexpensive for a tech name, with a forward price/earnings ratio of 37.55.

Tentarelli pointed out that, of course, Nvidia “cannot continue to grow [so fast] year-over-year indefinitely,” but still has room to rise. His firm’s 12-month price target is $875, about a third more than the current price ($674 at Wednesday’s close).

The bet is that Nvidia will be the chief beneficiary of a burgeoning AI computing surge. Fellow members of the Magnificent Seven tech giants—Amazon, Meta, Facebook and Alphabet—account for around 40% of Nvidia’s revenue, as they move into AI.

Nvidia began posting record results three quarters ago as AI fever gripped Wall Street and the world. The company’s market cap blew past the $1 trillion mark in June, and now sits at $1.66 trillion.

Certainly, there are headwinds. The once-expanding China market is pulling back on chips from foreign producers, and rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is developing its own cutting-edge semiconductors.

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