NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Sept. 20, 2001 (PRIMEZONE) -- PIMCO, one of the world's leading fixed-income fund management companies, is pleased to announce the further expansion of its local bond management operations in Munich, London and Tokyo via the hiring of three highly regarded portfolio managers and the relocation to Europe of a senior portfolio manager from Newport Beach.
Scott Mather, PIMCO Executive Vice President and a senior member of PIMCO's portfolio management and strategy group, will be relocating from Newport Beach, Calif., to Munich, Germany, where he will be Head of Fixed-Income Portfolio Management for Germany. Mather will report to Bill Powers and Chris Dialynas who are located in Newport Beach.
Also in Europe, Emanuele Ravano, 37, formerly a managing director at Credit Suisse Asset Management, was hired as a PIMCO Executive Vice President, and he will be Head of Fixed-Income Portfolio Management in London with a focus on mandates in the United Kingdom and Europe (Mather will act in that capacity until Ravano arrives in London next year). Andrew Bosomworth, 36, senior economist and portfolio manager of the International Investment Strategy Unit at the European Central Bank, was hired as a Vice President in Portfolio Management for PIMCO's team in Munich. He will focus on helping manage PIMCO's growing retail and institutional offerings in Germany and throughout Europe.
In Tokyo, Tomoya Masanao, 36, formerly with Goldman Sachs and Sumitomo Finance, was hired as a PIMCO Senior Vice President and Head of Portfolio Management in Japan. In this newly created position, Masanao is responsible for PIMCO's new trading and portfolio management group in Tokyo. He will be reporting to Sudi Mariappa who is located in Newport Beach.
Dr. Lee Thomas, PIMCO Managing Director and senior global strategist, and Sudi Mariappa, Executive Vice President and portfolio manager, both will continue in their roles on the firm's international portfolio management team in Newport Beach.
"These hires represent an important step forward for PIMCO and for our clients," said Bill Powers, PIMCO portfolio manager and Managing Director. "Our mission is to find the best fixed-income investments for our clients, anywhere in the world. We hope to accomplish this by further developing two centers of excellence for European portfolio management in Munich and London and by adding an experienced portfolio manager to our Tokyo office," he continued. "We will be better able to serve all our clients worldwide as well as supplement portfolios managed elsewhere with the best regional insight and investment ideas. Institutional, retail, and consultant-advised third-party business will be aggressively pursued and coordinated from these locations. As in our other portfolio management centers, investment strategy will continue to be coordinated from Newport Beach on a global basis."
"Ravano and Bosomworth bring PIMCO an enormous wealth of knowledge about the European fixed-income management arena, and will significantly boost awareness of our expertise there," Powers continued. "With our growth in Europe, the successful launch of our portfolio management operations in Sydney, and trading about to begin at our Tokyo office, the PIMCO portfolio management team will be managing portfolios 24 hours a day, leveraging our expertise across the entire world on behalf of our clients."
The hirings also illustrate PIMCO's critical role as overseer of all fixed-income assets managed by Allianz.
"Working together, PIMCO, Allianz and Dresdner can offer immense advantages to our clients," said Mather. "All three of these organizations are known to be among the world's best financial-service providers; the synergy of our joint efforts can only be beneficial for clients."
Ravano begins his PIMCO career in early October and will join the new London portfolio management team after a brief acclimation period in the Newport Beach headquarters. An employee of Credit Suisse Group for the past 16 years, Ravano was responsible for that firm's European fixed-income business and for establishing global and European fixed-income policies. A native of Italy, Ravano holds a Bachelors in Economics from Loyola College in Baltimore. Ravano will report to Bill Powers and Chris Dialynas in Newport Beach.
Bosomworth, who begins with PIMCO in November, is a native of New Zealand. He holds a Bachelors in Economics from Lincoln University in New Zealand and a Masters in Economics from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. He also holds an advanced studies diploma from the Kiel Institute of World Economics in Germany, and was a 1989 UNESCO post-graduate scholar in Poland. In his new position, Bosomworth will report to Scott Mather.
Prior to starting in Tokyo, Masanao has been working at PIMCO in Newport Beach. He is expected to begin trading in Japan sometime during the first quarter of 2002. Masanao holds a Master of Business Administration from Boston University and both a Masters and a Bachelors of Engineering from Osaka University in Japan.
With more than $230 billion in fixed-income assets under management in the U.S. and an additional $135 billion under management in Europe, PIMCO is one of the world's leading fixed-income fund-management companies. Founded in 1971 and based in Newport Beach, the company is majority owned by Munich-based Allianz Group, a leading global insurance company with nearly $985 billion in assets and represented in 70 countries around the globe.
Except for the historical information and discussions contained herein, statements contained in this news release constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements may involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, including the performance of financial markets, the investment performance of PIMCO's sponsored investment products and separately managed accounts, general economic conditions, future acquisitions, competitive conditions and government regulations, including changes in tax laws. Readers should carefully consider such factors. Further, such forward-looking statements speak only on the date at which such statements are made. PIMCO undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of such statements.