AIMCo splits top job, beefs up investment team

The C$69 billion ($66 billion) Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo) will split its chief executive and chief investment officer roles, with Leo de Bever retaining the chief executive position, while a search is underway for a new CIO.

The manager, which manages the assets of 27 pension and endowments, is also looking to hire professionals to fill nine new asset management positions including the CIO role.

De Bever has maintained the dual roles since he joined AIMCo in 2008. He was previously chief investment officer of Victorian Funds Management Corporation in Australia, and before that spent 10 years at Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.

AIMCo splits its asset management division in to public and private investment groups.

At March last year, within public investments, it managed $1.7 billion in hedge funds, C$10 billion in fixed income and $16 billion in equities split into an internal active equities group, an external fund management group and a structured and quantitative investments group.

Within its private investments group AIMCo managed $2 billion in mortgages, $1.5 billion in infrastructure, $1.4 billion in equities, $0.2 billion in timberlands and $4.8 billion real estate.

It also has an economics and strategy group, a fund management group which looks at value add at the total fund level, an operations team and a risk management and strategic planning group.

In addition to the chief investment officer position, AIMCo is looking to expand its investment team and has a search under way for for a senior associate private debt, a senior manager and an analyst for the fund management group, an associate for private equity, a senior credit analyst and a portfolio manager and the new position of vice president public equities and absolute return strategies.

It also has a number of of positions open in investment operations and risk management.