French Fund Promotes Asset Allocator to CIO

(May 22, 2012)  —  The French reserve pension fund has promoted an asset allocation specialist to CIO after the departure of its previous head two months ago.

Salwa Boussoukaya-Nasr has taken over the chief investment role, at the Fonds de Réserve pour les Retraites (FRR), according to her LinkedIn profile and reports in the French Press this week.

Boussoukaya-Nasr replaces Philippe Aurain, who had been CIO at the since April 2010 until joining third party fund manager Fédéris Gestion d’Actifs, as CIO and Chief Executive earlier this year.

She joined the €35 billion fund in August 2006 to lead its asset allocation team, after spending just over a year as a total return fund manager at Ixis Asset Management – now part of the Natixis Group.

Previously she had been an asset allocation portfolio manager at Lazard Freres Gestion, according to her LinkedIn profile.

In March, the FRR reported that it had assets of €35.1 billion at the end of December, having made a return of 0.37% against a backdrop of Eurozone economic tension.

In November 2010, the FRR underwent huge change as the French government passed a law transferring the entire asset portfolio to Cades, the state’s social debt fund. The FRR became a third-party manager to its own assets and reduced its risk appetite. It agreed to pay €2 billion a year to Cades, and wind down between 2018 and 2024.