[THE INVESTOR] South Korea’s National Pension Service -- the world’s third-largest public pension fund -- has selected Blackrock and GCM Grosvenor as general partners for managing 1 trillion won worth of hedge funds.

This is 0.2 percent of the 500 trillion won (US$428.2 billion) of NPS’ assets under management. 

BlackRock is the world’s largest asset management firm that more than US$ 4.65 trillion AUM. GCM has invested over US$45 billion in hedge funds, private equity, real estate and infrastructure.

As of October 2015, NPS was found to be investing 23.5 percent of its assets overseas. The fund plans to raise the proportion to over 30 percent by 2020.

The NPS is the country’s largest investor.

By Kim Ji-hyun (jemmie@heraldcorp.com)