The world’s largest bond manager hires new head of equities.

On September 7, PIMCO (Pacific Investment Management Company) has hired Neel Kashkari as global head of global equities. Kashkari’s new role is an expanded one. Prior to his post, he was primarily the face of the firm’s first active equities strategy, the Pathfinder Strategy, a global deep value offering, launched in April 2010. The strategy has since then expanded its influence over PIMCO’s emerging market offerings.

“Emerging market equity is an increasingly important segment in the equity space,” said Kashkari. “While developing nations drive more of the world’s growth, many global investors are under allocated to the sector…we believe a holistic investment process that deploys bottom-up equity selection with top-down macro analysis is the best way to capture the opportunities available in emerging market equities.”

In his new post as global head of equities, Kashkari will lead and oversee all aspects of PIMCO’s active equities efforts, including identifying strategies that pursue the best domestic and international investment opportunities. Kashkari will also chair the firm’s Equity Portfolio Committee, which brings together the firm’s equity and fixed income portfolio managers, integrating individual company analysis with PIMCO’s global economic views.

Joining Kashkari’s team will be Brad Kinkelaar and Cliff Remily as executive vice presidents and global equity portfolio managers, as well as Matt Burdett as vice president and research analyst, based in the Newport Beach office.

Kashkari joined the firm in December 2009, as managing director who joined the firm in December 2009 and previously served as PIMCO’s Head of New Investment Initiatives.

“The addition of this proven equity portfolio management team is another important step in the measured and deliberate approach we are taking to build PIMCO’s growing active equities investment platform,” said Mr. Kashkari in a statement.

The firm has been trying to amplify its equities platform. The firm’s developing equities trading desk currently spans New York, London and Asia. All PIMCO equity portfolio managers trade through this global desk, which “utilizes the latest equity trading technology in an effort to achieve the best possible execution for the firm’s clients”, according to Kashkari.

“Developing PIMCO’s equity trading capability has been a major undertaking, but it is absolutely essential to supporting our equity strategies, which are all global or international in nature,” he said.