Gordon Brown takes first big private sector job at Pimco

You might have imagined that a man who was chancellor and then prime minister of the country during the period leading up to the crisis might not be in demand in financial circles.

But you would be wrong. David Cameron's predecessor at Number 10, Gordon Brown, who served as chancellor for a decade before becoming PM in the year the credit crunch hit in 2007, has just taken up a potentially lucrative advisory role at one of the world's largest asset managers, Pimco.

It is his first major private sector role since leading Labour to defeat in the 2010 election. He announced he was stepping down as an MP last December.

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Brown is joining a panel that is filled with former grandees who are veterans of the crash, including chairman and former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and former European Central Bank Chairman Jean-Claude Trichet.

Why might the company, which manages part of an asset pool of $1.5trn, larger than the economy of Spain The Independent notes, want the advice of these economics old-timers?

For one thing, they have seen a boom and a major bust from the inside and so can provide valuable insight for its fund managers. The panel will give advice to the main board and members will give speeches to the annual 'secular forum', which sets long-term investment strategy.

But the Financial Times adds that bringing in heavyweights like Brown is also simply a means "of wowing clients and insisting it retains its clout despite the traumatic exit of its founder Bill Gross last year".

Since Gross, nicknamed the 'Bond King', left last year, Pimco's flagship bond fund has fallen in value from $163bn to $93bn and lost its crown as the largest in the world.

A spokesman for Brown would not disclose the fees for the role, which are likely to be slightly below the six-figure sum Bernanke is know to be paid. He added the former prime minister's remuneration would fund charitable work through his foundation and that he would not personally "receive a penny".