Paul McCulley, one of Pacific Investment Management Co.’s more high-profile investment managers, is the leaving the bond fund manager.
McCulley plans to leave Pimco at the end of the year and join a Philadelphia think tank as a public speaker, researcher and writer.
He plans to take some time off before joining the Global Interdependence Center, which promotes free trade and seeks to reduce global conflicts and improve worldwide living standards.
McCulley, 53, is a member of Pimco’s committee of top investment managers. He’s also a managing director and generalist portfolio manager.
He oversees funds that invest in short-term bonds, including the $11.6 billion Pimco Short-Term Fund and the $517 million Pimco Money Market Fund.
Pimco, part of German insurer Allianz SE, manages bond and other investments for pension funds, insurers and others. The company has $1.2 trillion in assets under management.
McCulley first came to Pimco in 1990 as an account manager. He left two years later for UBS Warburg, a unit of Zurich’s UBS AG, where he was chief economist for the Americas.
He returned to Pimco in 1999 as a portfolio manager.
After Co-Chief Investment Officer Bill Gross and Mohamed A. El-Erian, Pimco’s chief executive and co-chief investment officer, McCulley has been one of the public faces of the company.
McCulley, who writes monthly commentaries on central banks and monetary policy, once was cited as a potential leader of Pimco amid succession speculation a few years ago.
Pimco’s leadership issue was settled with El-Erian being named chief executive at start of 2009.
McCulley has been Pimco’s more notably liberal economist.
Last month, he showed support for the Federal Reserve’s controversial quantitative easing program in which the central bank is acquiring massive amounts of Treasury bonds to fee up cash and lending at banks.
A Democrat, McCulley was a counterpoint to Republican Gross, who tends to be more conservative on economic policy.
Gross and El-Erian praised McCulley in a letter to clients, according to a Bloomberg report.
McCulley “has contributed to the formulation of the firm’s economic outlook and portfolio positioning, which has helped Pimco safeguard and enhance our clients’ investment and retirement assets,” they said.
His responsibilities are set to shift to others at Pimco, according to the letter.
