NPS gains traction for real assets around the globe

South Korea’s $672 billion National Pension Service is increasing its push into real assets around the world, with three prominent partnerships announced in December 2020.

Most recently, NPS awarded a $1 billion global listed real estate securities mandate to Russell Investments, marking the second time the pension fund has partnered with Russell Investments on such a mandate.

“We are excited to further expand our listed real estate capability to capitalize [on] public real estate market opportunities and complement the private real estate portfolio,” said Scott Kim, head of the real estate investment division at NPS, in a statement. “Not only does this new mandate allow us to efficiently capture the potential price discrepancies between public and private real estate markets going forward, but it will also act as an excellent portfolio diversifier and help improving the overall portfolio risk-adjusted return.”

The new mandate is designed to take advan