El-Erian Named Sole Pimco CEO
Thompson, who shared the top spot with El-Erian, will retire
September 5, 2008
Mohamed El-Erian, who recently returned to Newport Beach-based Pimco after running a multi-billion dollar endowment fund at Harvard University for two years, will take over as the sole chief executive of the bond investor.
Prior to this appointment, El-Erian shared the top spot as co-CEO with Bill Thompson, who announced his retirement from the firm after 15 years yesterday. El-Erian will continue to serve as co-chief investment officer along with renowned bond investor Bill Gross. El-Erian has a history with Pimco, and in his prior post oversaw some $500 billion in fixed-income assets before leaving to fill a void at Harvard Management Company, which manages the university's endowments, in 2005. He served as CEO of Harvard Management Company and managed a $35 billion endowment. He came back in January after announcing his intentions last November.
Under Thompson’s tenure, Pimco grew from managing $40 billion in assets under management to $840 billion, as per the company.
“Pimco is going from ‘strength to strength’ as Mohamed takes the CEO reigns from Bill,” Gross said in a statement.
El-Erian spoke of the hemorrhaging losses in the financial stocks in his recently published book, When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic Change, and in an interview with Fox Business this past summer he said, “What used to be a financial crisis--because it was not contained--is now morphing into an economic crisis. So this is not going to go away. This is going to be an issue that is going to be with us for quarters, well into 2009 and we just have to reset the whole system and it takes time.”
For more information on related topics, visit the following:
