SWITZERLAND - The public pension fund for the Swiss canton of Zurich has published preliminary results to end-November 2010 and confirmed the hiring of a risk manager.

Preliminary figures for the first 11 months of last year show a performance of 1.8% for the CHF21bn (€16bn) Swiss BVK fund.

The result was achieved with a 21% allocation to bonds, 30% equities, 20% real estate and the rest in cash, mortgages, convertibles and alternatives (just over 5%).

The funding level dropped to 86.1% from 87.3% at year-end 2009.

Final results for 2010 will be available at the end of March.

Meanwhile, Stefan Kuhn will join the BVK from 1 May as risk manager, filling one of three positions the government had created at the BVK last year following allegations of corruption against the former head of asset management.

Kuhn joins the BVK from his position at the financial supervisory commission for

Liechtenstein, where he focused on local investment companies.
Prior to this, he headed the investment controlling team at the bank Vontobel.

The canton of Zurich said Kuhn's appointed "laid the basis" for setting up internal investment controlling and risk management at the BVK.