Lockheed Martin may embody the picture of sophisticated warfare, with its F-16 fighter jets flying around the globe, but until recently its pension plan resembled something more like going to battle using shields and spears. Christopher Li, CIO of Lockheed Martin Investment Management, changed that, say sources.
Joining in 2007 from his role as president of Diamond Capital Management, a subsidiary of Dow Chemical, the 49-year-old revamped Lockheed’s $23 billion investment portfolio — transforming it from a plain-vanilla plan into a sophisticated mix of alternatives, global equities, fixed income and extensive in-house management capabilities. One of his first moves was to instill a global perspective, and within a year he had opened an office in Hong Kong and was hiring local investment staff in Asia. He also changed his benchmarks to reflect a global mandate, using the MSCI all-countries index in 2008.
In 2009, Li restructured Lockheed’s fixed-income holdings to reflect the mission of preserving capital and as a hedge to risky asset classes in the portfolio. In hedge funds, Li is making direct investments in single-strategy funds. The changes are yielding results. In 2009 the fund was up over 20 percent.
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