The €34.1bn pensions provider for employees of the German Catholic Church and charitable sectors, Kirchliche Zusatzversorgungskasse des Verbandes der Diözesen Deutschlands (KZVK), has appointed Christoph Metz as its new chief investment officer (CIO), a spokesperson for the scheme told IPE.  

Metz will replace Stefan Heidelfrom from January next year, with Heidelfrom taking on a different management role at the pension scheme.  

In his new role, Metz will be responsible for strategic investments of assets that at book value were worth €26.59bn at the end of 2023, according to the scheme’s latest financial statement.  

KZVK declined to comment on whether the appointment of the new CIO leads to a strategic realignment of the scheme’s investments.   

Metz joins KZVK from the public saving bank Hamburger Sparkasse (Haspa), where he served in the role of deputy head portfolio management in the private banking division. He led a team of 21 investment professionals responsible for managing portfolios of assets of high-net-worth individuals, and was responsible for designing, developing, and implementing a new global multi-asset investment process in the private banking division.  

Metz was also a member of the asset allocation committee of Haspa private banking, according to his LinkedIn profile. KZVK’s new CIO also has experience in the institutional investment industry. Prior to joining Haspa, Metz was head of asset management at Evangelische Zusatzversorgungskasse (EZVK), the German provider of occupational pensions for the employees in the German protestant church with close to €13bn AUM.  

He was senior portfolio manager, multi-assets, at Pioneer Investment between 2015 and 2017, a period marked by the takeover of the asset management subsidiary of Italy’s UniCredit bank by Amundi. He led a team of of portfolio managers designing multi-asset strategies at AXA IM for 30 funds with AUM of €4bn, also for institutional and pension clients in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and Belgium.   

As CIO of KZVK, Metz will manage a diversified portfolio of assets invested mainly in equities and investment funds (€16.6bn), bearer bonds and other fixed income securities (€4.5bn). The scheme has built up recently its fixed-income, and private market investments, while cutting exposure to equities. 

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Luigi is IPE's Berlin-based DACH correspondent. His coverage includes regulation and the latest pensions and investments trends, and, being a native Italian, he also covers Italy’s pensions market. He has reported from Italy and Germany on international politics and business for European and US publications including USA Today, Bloomberg BNA and for the investigative magazine L’Espresso. He was previously Germany correspondent for Mergermarket covering M&A.View full Profile

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