GPIF Continues Infrastructure Push
World’s largest pension fund adds infrastructure appointment, while global real estate fund-of-funds mandate announcements expected soon.
After a year of reviewing infrastructure and real estate multi-manager proposals, the world’s largest pension fund has found its latest infrastructure manager.
Japan’s ¥162trn ($1.5 trillion) Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) announced Tuesday that DBJ Asset Management will be the third in a series of huge hires for its global infrastructure mandate. The firm joins StepStone Infrastructure & Real Assets and Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management Company, hired in January, and Pantheon and Nomura Asset Management Company, which was appointed in February.
The influx of additions follows a similar move in December, when the fund added Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation for a domestic real estate mandate.
Yukihiko Ito of Japanese advisory firm Asterisk Realty, a tracker of the fund’s shift into alternatives, noted that the move was the first of the fund’s fiscal year, and expects GPIF to make announcements regarding the global real estate fund-of-funds mandate shortly.
The call for infrastructure and real estate multi-managers began last April, when the Japanese megafund posted the call for applications. In October, IPE reported that Nohihiro Takahashi, GPIF’s president, had told Australian fund managers that infrastructure was a key element in its new alternatives strategy.