Pimco COO Weil To Oversee Advisory Operations; Hodge To Succeed

   DOW JONES NEWSWIRES 
 

Pacific Investment Management Co. announced that Chief Operating Officer Richard Weil will oversee the giant asset manager's advisory business.

Succeeding him will be Douglas Hodge, who has helped build Pimco's Asia Pacific operations the past seven years.

Chief Executive Mohamed A. El-Erian noted the company's advisory business - which handles asset-valuation and monitoring services among other duties - "has grown rapidly over the past several years to serve the needs of our public and private sector clients around the world." Weil has been operating chief since 2000.

Hodge joined Pimco, a unit of German insurer Aliianz SE (AZ), in 1989.

The change comes weeks after co-founder Bill Gross, who is also co-chief investment officer with El-Erian, took over day-to-day management of a closed-end fund which has struggled amid woes in the high-yield corporate-bond market. El-Erian became Pimco's CEO in September.

-By Kevin Kingsbury, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-2136; [e-mail]