Transformation of GIC

LIM Chow Kiat, a 44-year-old man with a calm demeanour and a dimpled smile, is known as someone who doesn't stray from his habitual ways. Friends and colleagues say that Mr Lim - group chief investment officer (CIO) of GIC Pte, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund - has kept his hair short and worn the same style of square, black-framed glasses for as long as they can remember. "He probably looked exactly the same when he was a child," says Lam Poh Min, who used to sit next to Mr Lim before leaving GIC in 2004 to co-found Singapore-based Octagon Capital Management Pte, one of the first quant hedge funds in Asia.

These days, Mr Lim's role at GIC is all about breaking old habits. He and his boss, group president Lim Siong Guan, 67, are steering GIC through a major overhaul designed to squeeze higher returns from the fund's investments, according to Bloomberg Markets magazine's January issue. With the exception of the group president, none of GIC's top eight executives has been on the executive committee …