Pacific Investment Management Co. announced Monday that Neel Kashkari, the first head of the government's $700 billion financial rescue program, would join the company as a managing director and head of new investment initiatives.

Pimco, one of the world's largest bond managers and a unit of Germany Allianz SE, said that Kashkari would be based in its Newport Beach, Calif., office.

Kashkari, a former official at Goldman Sachs, was selected by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, a former head of Goldman, to run the financial bailout effort in the fall of 2008.

Kashkari stayed on during the early months of the Obama administration to run the bailout program and was replaced in the spring by Herbert Allison, who now serves as Treasury's assistant secretary for financial stability.