Matthew C Klein, Columnist

El-Erian's Next Act and Pimco's Future

Mohamed El-Erian has just resigned as co-head of Pimco, the world's largest bond mutual fund. What will he do next?

January 22, 2014 at 12:42 AM UTC

Matthew C. Klein writes for Bloomberg View about the economy and financial markets. He previously wrote for the Economist magazine and its economics blog, Free Exchange. Before that, Klein was a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he spent more than two years studying the history of the Federal Reserve and the intellectual history of monetary economics for an upcoming book by Sebastian Mallaby. He also worked at Bridgewater Associates, where he studied the economies of Central and Eastern Europe and advised institutional investors on asset-liability management. Klein has a bachelor's degree in history from Yale University. Originally from Chicago, he lives in New York.

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Until the back story comes out, there's going to be plenty of speculation about why Mohamed El-Erian plans to resign as chief executive officer and co-chief investment officer of the Pacific Investment Management Company. Pimco had a lousy year and his bonus was too small; he's bored and wants to do something else; a personality clash; the inevitable desire to spend more time with his family. (I won't pretend to know the reason, though it's worth noting that one beneficiary is Andrew Balls, a former Financial Times journalist and the younger brother of Labour politician Ed Balls; he will become Pimco's deputy chief investment officer, up from managing director in London.)

And since we're in the business of speculation, here are a few thoughts on what El-Erian might wind up doing: