Fundsters, it's high time that y'all met the man in charge of righting the Pimco [profile] ship.

Over the weekend Dean Starkman of the Los Angeles Times detailed the rise of Pimco CEO Douglas Hodge and the challenges that Hodge faces in the post-Bill Gross Pimco world. The "Mr. Outside" label for Hodge comes from Gross (Pimco's co-founder and former star PM) himself, pre-exit.

The LA Times (following the lead of unnamed sources cited in the article) remarks on Hodge having a lower profile than Gross, or Mohamed El-Erian (Hodge's predecessor as CEO). The paper even drops the F-word, Larry Fink, comparing Hodge to the ubiquitous chief of the world's largest asset manager.

The big question on the minds of fundsters and Allianz board members (Pimco is an Allianz subsidiary) alike is one posed by the paper: whether or not "the new chief executive can turn around Pimco's flagging fortunes". Hodge offered his idea of what it will take to revive the fixed-income giant, and his answer doesn't involve him hogging the spotlight. (Though he will speak at Morningstar's big conference next month.)

"It's really about the depth of the team and the process that's been part of Pimco for so long. That's what I'm most proud of," Hodge told the paper. "I'm not the guy who stands in the klieg lights and says it's all about me. That's not what I'm about."

Yet if Hodge offered details of his vision for how Pimco will regain and built out its competitive edge, those remarks must've landed on the paper's cutting room floor.

The article offers a glimpse at how far Pimco has come in the past year and a half, as its outflows slow and its performance rebounds. The piece includes a history of Hodge's career at the firm; he joined Pimco 26 years as ago. And there are quotes from different Pimco watchers (some on the record and some off the record, some Pimco-friendly and some foe), notably including former Pimco trustee William Popejoy (Hodge is "probably what the doctor ordered right now") and El-Erian ("You're the person I trust," which Hodge says El-Erian said upon appointing Hodge chief operating officer in 2009). 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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