Guan Ong
Principal, Blue Rice Investment Management & Former Chief Investment Officer, KIC
Guan is the Principal of Blue Rice Investment Management, an absolute return Asian credit fund set up to seek investment opportunities in Asia. He is also an investment advisory board member for Swiss Re Private Equity Partners (2011-Present).
Prior to setting up Blue Rice, Guan was the Chief Investment Officer (2006-09) of Korea Investment Corporation (KIC), Korea’s sovereign wealth fund. Prior to joining KIC, Guan served as the CEO and CIO of Prudential Asset Management Co. in Korea (2004-06). He joined Prudential Financial in Hong Kong as an Asian Fixed Income portfolio manager in 1998 and started Prudential Financial’s Singapore office in 2000, where he was responsible for developing a team that focused on research and trading in Asian Fixed Income credits. He was a member of the Investment Committee for the National University of Singapore’s Endowment Fund (2002-2011).
Guan began his career in 1990 with Credit Suisse First Boston (London). He was involved with CSFB’s role as the financial advisor to the Kingdom of Sweden in the evaluation and restructuring of Swedish banks during its banking crisis of 1993/94. In addition, he was responsible for structuring mortgage and asset-backed products for CSFB before focusing on Asian corporate credits in 1995. In 1996, he moved to Hong Kong to join Lehman Brothers, where he was responsible for corporate credit research and where he worked with Lehman’s Asian proprietary distressed asset team.
Guan was voted by The Asset Magazine as the most astute manager in Asia dollar bonds for four years running (2001-2004). In 2005, he received the Asian Investor award for managing the turnaround of Prudential Financial’s acquisition in Korea. He graduated from Imperial College, London in 1986 with a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering.
