Pay at Pimco in London. High, but not hundreds of millions high

Now that Pimco’s (allegedly) exorbitant pay has become common knowledge, will you rush to apply for a job at Pimco’s London office? Maybe, but you need to know that while life will be lavish, it won’t be as lavish as Bill Gross’s purported $290m pay package might suggest.  

Results filed by Pimco Europe for the past three years suggest that average Pimco person in the UK actually earns £587k ($923k). That’s a lot, but it’s not ‘Grossian’. It’s more than Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley pay their average London bankers (£362k and £184k respectively). And its more than the average pay per head at most of London’s top paying hedge funds.  But it’s probably not enough to work for a few years and then retire aged 30.

As with most financial services firms, Pimco Europe pays the rank and file very good money, but saves the mind-boggling amounts for its elite. Last year, the highest paid individual at its London office earned £22m. Its seven directors each earned an average of £7.7m.

If you’re thinking of working there, the bad news is that Pimco doesn’t appear to be expanding. Total headcount at Pimco in London remained stable at 285 people between 2012 and 2013. And despite reports that Virginie Maisonneuve would be hiring for Pimco’s new equities business, the number of registered individuals at Pimco’s London operation fell from 143 in January 2013 to 126 in November.

Nonetheless, there are jobs going at Pimco’s London business now. The fund is advertising for 12 people, including an MBA intern (account and product management), a portfolio associate (to support a ‘generalist portfolio manager’), a portfolio risk manager (to ‘review portfolio composition and concentrations, including identifying outliers in risk terms,’) and a structured products modeller (a PhD in finance is a plus).

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