BOSTON (Reuters) - The state of Rhode Island hired a senior Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS) executive as chief investment officer to oversee its $7.9 billion pension fund, the state's Treasurer said in an email on Friday.
Alec Stais was a managing director at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, where he helped match smaller pensions and endowments with investment staff in the Global Portfolio Solutions Group. He worked for Goldman for 21 years.
Stais will start the new position in May, succeeding Anne-Marie Fink, a former JP Morgan banker, who left the pension fund in June 2016 for a position in the private sector.
The pension fund made headlines in October with its decision to exit a handful of hedge funds, including Och-Ziff Capital Management, Brevan Howard Asset Management and Ascend Capital. For the 12 months that ended in February, Rhode Island's pension fund returned 14.4 percent, modestly outperforming its benchmark which gained 14 percent.