KENFO Names Daniel von Borries Its Next CEO and CIO, Taking Over a €27.6 Billion Nuclear Waste Fund on 1 January 2027

KENFO, the German fund that holds money set aside for nuclear waste disposal, has named Daniel von Borries as its next chief executive and chief investment officer, effective 1 January 2027. The fund announced the appointment on 12 October. He succeeds Anja Mikus, who has led the fund since it was set up in 2017 and leaves the board on 31 December 2026 for age-related reasons. KENFO held €27.6 billion at 30 June 2026, and it is reshaping its investment advisory board at the same time. For a manager who wants a conversation with a large European institution, a change of chief investment officer is when a file reopens, so this note sets out what is known and what a GP can sensibly do with it.

Who is taking over

Von Borries holds a doctorate in economics. From 2004 to 2016 he sat on the board of the ERGO insurance group, where as chief investment officer he oversaw about €130 billion of assets. From 2016 until mid-2026 he was chief financial officer of Swiss Life Deutschland. At KENFO he will hold the combined CEO and CIO role that Mikus built, responsible for strategy and for the fund's investments. Bernhard Kluttig, who chairs the foundation's board of trustees, called him a very experienced finance and investment expert. Mikus is the founding head of the fund.

A reshaped advisory board

The investment advisory board is changing too. Claus Stickler becomes its chair, succeeding Immo Querner. Three members are joining: Pål Bergström, chief executive of the Swedish state pension fund AP7, Evi C. Vogl, a former chief executive of Amundi Deutschland, and Britta Weidenbach, managing partner of the multi-family office AURETAS. Christian Kopf and Sonja Laud are leaving the board alongside Querner. We read the mix of a pension chief executive, an asset management veteran and a family office partner as a sign of the range of views the new chief investment officer will have around him, though KENFO has not said that.

The fund he inherits

KENFO was funded in 2017 with €24.1 billion from the operators of German nuclear plants. It receives no further contributions and reimburses the federal government each year for nuclear waste disposal costs, which have totalled €5.3 billion since inception. The fund has just over 50 staff and a three-member executive board. At 30 June 2026 its allocation was 44.8% equities, 38.0% bonds, 14.3% unlisted assets and 2.9% cash. On our arithmetic the unlisted sleeve is about €3.9 billion, and the sources do not split it by strategy, so we do not either. Our reading is that a fund with no new inflows and a yearly payout has to treat liquidity carefully, which matters when you describe your fund's distribution profile to it.

How it compares

Among the large state investors we have covered recently, KENFO is on the smaller side. Mubadala's CFO said it would keep deploying about $39 billion a year, a pace well above KENFO's entire balance. Qatar's fund of funds, which added a 13th manager this month, shows how a sovereign investor can build a manager roster step by step. KENFO sits closer to the long-horizon, liability-aware end of the sovereign wealth fund group, and its 14.3% unlisted share leaves it with room to grow if the new leadership wants that. That last point is our observation, not a stated plan.

What a GP should do

The following is our advice, not guidance from KENFO. Do not send an unsolicited pitch before 1 January: a departing CIO has little reason to take on a new manager, and an incoming one will want time to set priorities. Use the interval to prepare. Write a short note in the language of an insurance investor, covering cash yield, distributions to paid-in capital, how your fund behaves in a rate shock and what liquidity it offers, since that is the world von Borries comes from. Keep it document-ready, because a team of just over 50 people will favour concise, checkable material. Check KENFO's published investment principles and its public statements for the strategies and regions it describes, and do not assume it wants yours. Our guide to finding a warm path to LPs explains how to look for shared connections without contacting anyone you have no reason to approach, and we would not approach the new advisory board members at all, since their role is oversight.

A note on timing and language

Von Borries's background is on the insurer side, first as an investment chief and then as a finance chief, so he will be used to thinking about assets against long-dated obligations. KENFO's own position has a similar shape: a fixed pool, no new inflows and a yearly reimbursement to the federal government. That is our observation of the public facts, and we do not know how the new leadership will weigh illiquid assets against that profile. A manager who frames its pitch around steady cash flows and downside behaviour will likely be speaking a language he already uses.

What to watch next

Watch for the first public statement after 1 January 2027, any update to the fund's investment strategy, and the next annual results release, since the last was published in July 2026. FundLinx members can see which sovereign investors are active in your strategy.

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