Th
e surprise resignation of PIMCO’s Mohamed El-Erian rocked the investment world. Such an abrupt leadership change is almost unknown among investment firms, and with El-Erian’s sky-high public profile his departure was even more newsworthy.
The change signals a big shift for PIMCO and a greater focus on restoring its performance after a poor few years. But it also marks the end of the full-on media presence that El-Erian embodied as CEO. That could be the biggest change of all.
For a CEO, being visible in the media can be a good thing: You can promote the company (and yourself), boost sales and shape public-policy issues. Mohamed El-Erian understood all this. He was a nearly constant presence on television and in print, and PIMCO prospered.
The risk, of course, is that a high profile executive can take his eye off the ball. It doesn’t look good if the business goes off the rails while he’s still keeping a full schedule of media appearances.
That seems to have been the case at PIMCO. Its fixed income funds were lagging and an effort to broaden into equity products had stalled, while Mr El-Erian continued to hit the airwaves as a favorite public intellectual and representative of the global investment elite.
Investment managers like PIMCO pride themselves in keeping a steady hand at the helm. Unlike their buccaneering investment-bank brethren, asset management firms generally avoid sudden executive changes since they can send customers (and their cash) scurrying for calmer waters.
But, ironically, the 24/7 media presence that helped bring about Mr. El-Erian’s departure really was no longer needed.
PIMCO long ago outgrew the need for the sort of high wattage PR campaign that Mr. El-Erian so seemed to enjoy. His near-constant presence in the media was a holdover from an earlier time, when large personalities helped sell mutual funds and television was the most efficient way to reach the masses. Think Peter Lynch at Fidelity.
But this approach is no longer efficient today given the availability of digital marketing and social media, nor is it needed once a firm has won a healthy share of the investment market.
Sure, a big name on the small screen can still draw assets, but by the time you’re as big as PIMCO, it’s no longer necessary to be on CNBC every week.
Maybe the folks at Allianz began to recognize this. At the very least, they’ve decided to leave Mr. Gross as the sole chief investment officer and make being CEO a full-time role.
That job now goes to Douglas Hodge, the company’s COO, a man so unknown to the press that his name was not mentioned until deep into the news accounts of the executive shifts. Expect him to spend a lot of time fixing PIMCO’s performance and product issues. But don’t look for him on CNBC or Bloomberg any time soon.