In the end, it apparently came down to an issue of styles, and the need to stop missing milestones with his daughter.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, former Pimco chief executive Mohamed El-Erian said that he and co-founder Bill Gross had different ways of doing things.

And the combination of these different ways worked for a long while, until it didn't.

Here is how he described it to Gregory Zuckerman,

"We always had different styles, which made us very good complements in serving our clients and leading the firm forward through both smooth and rough markets,...That worked very well for a long time, until last year."

According to the WSJ story, El-Erian worried whether these rising tensions with Gross would get in the way of him running the firm.

Gross still seems to be baffled by the departure, publicly asking El-Erian to give an explanation.

Meanwhile, El Erian in the WSJ article expressed surprise at the media frenzy resulting from his departure.

In his new life, El-Erian will reportedly spend half his time advising Allianz's board on global economic matters and the other half writing a book.

He also said that he will spend a lot more time with his daughter. El-Erian said that his daughter, who is 10, had given him a list last year of 22 events at her school that he had missed.

El-Erian described this as a "wake-up" call. 

Edited by: Tommy Fernandez


Stay ahead of the news ... Sign up for our email alerts now
CLICK HERE