RPMI Railpen, NOW: Pensions, Allianz Global Investors, Finnish Centre for Pensions, Alecta, AXA IM, Phoenix Group, Muzinich, Capzanine

RPMI Railpen – The £27.4bn (€32bn) pension fund for the UK’s railway sector has appointed Johanna Kyrklund and Carl Bang to its investments board as part of efforts to strengthen its governance. 

Bang is a former chairman and CEO of State Street Global Advisors in France and was the first CIO of the Qatar Foundation Endowment Fund. He has held a variety of senior roles in asset management, including running money for the Canadian National Railway Pension Fund and Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global. More recently, Bang was president of Sun Life Institutional investments in Canada.

Kyrklund is global head of multi-asset investments at UK-listed asset manager Schroders. She runs the company’s diversifed growth strategy and chairs its global asset allocation committee, and is also a member of Cambridge University’s investment board. Before joining Schroders, Kyrklund held asset allocation and portfolio manager roles at Insight Investment and Deutsche Asset Management.

Paul Trickett, chair of Railpen’s investments board, said the appointments would “strengthen our governance team, and significantly enhance our ongoing ability to pay our members’ pensions securely, affordably and sustainably”.

NOW: Pensions – Nigel Waterson, chair of the trustee board at UK defined contribution master trust NOW: Pensions, is to step down after more than seven years. Joanne Segars, former chief executive of trade body the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association, will lead the trustee board on an interim basis.

The master trust has also secured a six-week extension to its authorisation application to the UK’s Pensions Regulator, as result of the staff change and its acquisition by Cardano Group.

Waterson said: “I am proud of what we have achieved at NOW: Pensions. When I joined, we had no members and no funds. Today, we are the third-largest master trust and a major player in the wider pensions sector.

“With the historic administrative issues largely resolved, we are well placed for authorisation, and for the Cardano Group to acquire the business following authorisation. This feels like a natural point to step down.”

Allianz Global Investors – The €524bn asset management group has hired Barbara Rupf Bee to lead its European business. As head of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), she will take over responsibility for distribution in this region from Tobias Pross, who was named global head of distribution in April last year. Rupf Bee will also be a member of Allianz GI’s global executive committee.

Rupf Bee joins from UBS, where she is currently head of wealth management in Germany. She has also been head of the EMEA client group at what was Deutsche Asset and Wealth Management, and CEO of Renaissance Asset Managers Group, an emerging markets specialist.

In addition, Antje Stobbe, a corporate governance expert, has joined Allianz’s international ESG research team. She will play a central role in implementing the manager’s stewardship activities on the German market, the company said. She will also be an ESG analyst for the international cyclical consumer goods sector.

Stobbe joins from Deutsche Bank, where she had responsibility for stakeholder engagement in the investor relations team. 

Finnish Centre for Pensions – Mikko Kautto has been appointed as the new chief executive of the Finnish Centre for Pensions, the statutory central body of Finland’s earnings-related pension scheme. As of 1 June, he will take over from the centre’s current chief executive Jukka Rantala, who is retiring.

Kautto has worked for the centre since 2007, as director of research, statistics and planning since 2013, and as head of the research department before this.

Alecta – Ingrid Bonde has been put forward as the new chair of the supervisory board of Swedish pension fund Alecta. She is to replace Erik Åsbrink, according to a proposal from the company’s advisory committee, which will be voted on at a meeting of Alecta’s council. Åsbrink has chaired the supervisory board for 19 years.

Bonde has previously worked as vice president and chief financial officer of Swedish state-owned power company Vattenfall, chief executive of Swedish pension fund AMF and director general of the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority. She is also currently chair of the board of Swedish debt collection company Hoist Finance and chairman of the Swedish Climate Policy Council.

AXA Investment Managers – Laurent Clavel has been named head of research at the €730bn asset manager, effective immediately. Previously head of macroeconomic research, Clavel will lead the research team, comprising of euro credit analysts and macro-economists.

Clavel will report to Gilles Moëc, who will become chief economist of the AXA Group in June. Moëc is currently chief European economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. 

Phoenix Group – The UK insurance group has reorganised the membership of its independent governance committees (IGCs), which oversee its defined contribution pension funds range. The changes follow last year’s acquisition of Standard Life Assurance. 

David Hare, the independent chair of the Phoenix Life IGC, will become the independent chair of both Phoenix’s IGCs. It means René Poisson will step down from the Standard Life Assurance Limited IGC. Both committees will have some shared members, although full membership has yet to be confirmed.

Muzinich – Laurence Kubli has joined the fixed income manager as a structured credit specialist. In this newly created role she will help build Muzinich’s first structured credit strategies.

Kubli joins from GAM Investments, where she was a senior portfolio manager working in structured finance and corporate credit for 11 years. She previously held various roles at Clariden Leu Bank, Man Group, Merrill Lynch Capital Markets and Credit Suisse. 

Tatjana Greil-Castro, portfolio manager at Muzinich, said: “Incorporating asset-backed securities into our product suite is an excellent complement to our existing capabilities as we continue to seek new and innovative ways to meet clients’ investment objectives.”

Capzanine – The Paris-based private debt manager has hired Renaud Tourmente as head of business development, a newly created role, effective 6 May. He will be tasked with growing the company’s product range and international profile, Capzanine said.

Tourmente joins from AXA Investment Managers, which has an equity stake in Capzanine. At AXA IM, he was jointly in charge of the group’s global loans and private debt platform. He has also worked at BNP Paribas and WestLB.

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