. . . late on this but it's great news for PIMCO and a huge loss for the Harvard Endowment.

PIMCO, one of the world’s leading investment management companies, announced today that Mohamed El-Erian, its former Managing Director and Senior Portfolio Manager, will return to the firm in January 2008 in a newly created position as Managing Director and Co-CEO and Co-CIO. In his new position, El-Erian will join CEO Bill Thompson and Chief Investment Officer and company founder Bill Gross, as a member of PIMCO’s senior management team.

El-Erian is one of the smartest guys in the business. I once posted about El-Erian when he left PIMCO, telling the story about the Argentina collapse that El-Arian foresaw a year before it happened. He calmly--and secretly--unwound billions in Argentine bonds before anyone suspected a collapse, saving PIMCO and PIMCO clients millions. How many times have you heard stories about money managers that are proactive, as opposed to reactive? Yeah, exactly: not many.

It's no mean task, what El-Erian and his team did in markets as mean, nasty and cannibalistic as ours. He's a canny operator and a skilled analyst. It's nice to see him back where he belongs.