Japan reappoints giant pension fund GPIF chief Takahashi

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's government on Friday said it has reappointed Norihiro Takahashi as chief of the world's largest pension fund, Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF).

Takahashi, 59, was first appointed as the head of the $1.3 trillion fund in April last year. He is a former executive at Norinchukin Bank, a major Japanese global institutional investor, and has expertise in fixed income management.

His new term begins on Oct. 1 and runs through March 2020.

In 2014, GPIF made a historic shift by cutting its reliance on domestic bonds and increasing weightings of riskier assets in response to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's push to promote a risk-taking investment approach.

In the fiscal first quarter ended in June, GPIF rebounded from a loss in the previous year and posted a 3.54 percent return on its investments.

(Reporting by Taiga Uranaka and Takashi Umekawa)