Pimco Director Chosen to Head Harvard Endowment Fund

Meyer announced in January that he would be stepping down from his post to start his own private investment firm (See  Harvard’s Money Management Dream Team to Resign ).   Under his leadership, Harvard’s endowment grew from $4.7 billion to the recently announced $25.9 billion (See  Harvard Enjoys 19.2% FY 2005 Endowment Performance ).

The Boston Globe reports that El-Erian is a leading emerging market bond fund manager responsible for about $27 billion invested in debt securities for Pimco, and was a recent candidate to run the International Monetary Fund.   He joined Pimco in 1999 from Salomon Smith Barney, where he had been the London-based head of emerging market economic research.

According to the Globe, one of El-Erian’s principal mutual funds, a version of the Pimco Emerging Markets Bond Fund available to institutional investors, has earned about 19.3% annually over the past five years, ranking him among the top 11% of mutual fund managers in charge of comparable portfolios, according to Lipper Inc.

Harvard previously offered the job to Mark Nunnelly, a managing director of Bain Capital in Boston, who declined the position.