Central Bank’s McEvoy to join US investments giant Pimco

The Central Bank's former director of consumer protection, Gráinne McEvoy, is set to join the Irish operation of US investments giant Pimco early next year, according to sources.

Ms McEvoy, who handed in her notice in August and remains an employee of the bank, will take on a senior position in Pimco's Irish business, which will require her to undergo a standard so-called fitness and probity vetting by the Central Bank. Her exact future title is not known.

Pimco Global Advisors (Ireland), based on Harcourt Street in central Dublin, provides management services to various Irish-based Pimco funds. This unit counts former taoiseach John Bruton, one-time and Aer Lingus chief executive David Kennedy and former Economic and Social Research Institute director Frances Ruane as directors.

The US group also has an Irish branch of its Pimco Europe GmbH operating from the same Dublin address.

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California-headquartered Pimco, a unit of German insurance group Allianz, is one of the world's largest fund managers, with $2.2 trillion (€1.9 trillion) of assets under management at the end of June. It is best known for its bond funds.

Sources said on Wednesday that Pimco has 55 employees in Dublin, higher than the figure of 40 previously believed. Its rented floor at the Harcourt Building, which it agreed to lease last year, gives it capacity to grow its office-based workforce to more than 100 people.

The Central Bank said in late August that Ms McEvoy would be leaving the organisation in January 2022 to take up a role in the private sector and that she was stepping away immediately from frontline supervisory activity to avoid any potential conflicts of interest.

Ms McEvoy was replaced as head of consumer protection on October 1st by Colm Kincaid, previously director of securities and markets supervision. Darragh Rossi, head of funds supervision, is acting up as Mr Kincaid's interim successor until a permanent appointment is made.

Having joined the bank in 1997, Ms McEvoy went on to hold several positions, including the role of head of the securities and markets supervision division and deputy head of authorisations, before being appointed to the consumer protection job in 2018.

Ms McEvoy was heavily involved at the latter stages of the bank’s tracker mortgage examination.

More recently, she was among the key players in a review of differential pricing in the insurance market, resulting in the bank announcing in July that it plans to ban the widespread practice of motor and home insurers increasing premiums for loyal customers by stealth. However, it stopped short of following the UK in effectively prohibiting providers offering below-cost discounts to lure new customers.

Ms McEvoy declined to comment on her next move through a Central Bank spokesman. A spokeswoman for Pimco also declined to comment.