After stepping down as an MP ahead of the general election, Gordon Brown has taken up a role on the advisory panel of Pimco, a global investment management firm. He joins a panel of ‘world-renowned experts’ who include Jean-Claude Trichet, the former president of the European Central Bank, and Ben Bernanke, the former US Federal Reserve chairman.
Pimco have released a statement speaking of their delight at their global advisory board which they say boasts ‘an unrivalled team of macroeconomic thinkers and former policymakers’:
‘The global advisory board is an unrivalled team of macroeconomic thinkers and former policymakers, whose insights into the intersection of policy and financial markets will be a valuable input to our investment process.’
However, when it come to Brown — who says he will not financially benefit from the role — it hasn’t always been the case that staff at Pimco have seen him as such an asset. In fact back in 2010 when Brown was Prime Minister, the co-founder of Pimco Bill Gross — who resigned from the fund in 2014 — dealt a big blow to the Labour government when he warned investors that the UK was a ‘must to avoid’ as its debt was ‘resting on a bed of nitroglycerine’:
‘The UK is a must to avoid.
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