Vineer Bhansali is leaving Pacific Investment Management Co., where he was a managing director specializing in quantitative portfolios, to start his own investment firm.
Mr. Bhansali, who said he co-managed separate accounts and 28 funds with assets of about $50 billion at PIMCO, is launching LongTail Alpha a week after the Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time since 2006, one of several factors setting the stage for his venture.
“Considering where the market is in terms of implied volatility and risk, this is very much an optimal time,” Mr. Bhansali said in an interview Tuesday. “Tail-risk hedging by definition pays off when there's big bear events. That's when the strategy that we've used, which is an active management of the hedging portfolio, pays off.”
He said his exit is unrelated to PIMCO's two years of withdrawals and management turmoil. Investors have pulled about $500 billion from the firm since 2013, amid concerns about PIMCO's ability to navigate rising interest rates and the 2014 ouster of William H. Gross.
This year, Wendy Cupps, a managing director who oversaw PIMCO's product management, is retiring at age 53. Virginie Maisonneuve, PIMCO's chief investment officer for equities, resigned in May after the firm shrank its stock-picking unit.
Mr. Bhansali notified PIMCO of his resignation Tuesday, according to the company.
“We thank him for his service to our clients and firm and wish him well in his future endeavors,” PIMCO spokeswoman Agnes Crane said in an e-mail.