Prudential Fixed Income Names Bjorn Flesaker to Lead Quantitative Modeling

NEWARK, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Prudential Fixed Income announced today that Bjorn Flesaker has been named a managing director and head of quantitative modeling. Prudential Fixed Income is the public fixed income asset management business of Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE:PRU).

Flesaker is responsible for leading quantitative research and the team that develops models to assist traders and portfolio managers in identifying investment opportunities. The group also works with risk managers to quantify risks within investment portfolios. He reports to Arvind Rajan, managing director and head of quantitative research and risk management at Prudential Fixed Income.

“I’m delighted that Bjorn has joined Prudential,” Rajan said. “I expect Bjorn to play a critical role in both our bottom-up alpha generation and our risk mitigation processes. His outstanding track record in mathematical finance and in implementing state-of the-art quantitative models adds valuable depth to our franchise."

Flesaker has spent more than a decade leading fixed income quantitative research, modeling, and derivatives activities at major financial firms. Most recently, he worked for Bloomberg, first as a senior member of their quantitative research group and then as a credit derivatives business manager. Formerly, he was global head of credit analytical modeling at Morgan Stanley, served as head of quantitative risk at MBIA, and was also global head of derivatives research at Bear Stearns. He began his career at Merrill Lynch in the trading research group.

Flesaker holds a Ph.D. in finance from the University of California-Berkeley and has served on the finance faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is also a member of the advisory board to the financial mathematics program at King’s College in London and is a fellow of the mathematics in finance program at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. He has lectured and published extensively on topics of mathematical finance.

Prudential Fixed Income is among the largest fixed income managers in the United States, with $232 billion in assets under management as of December 31, 2009. The firm offers traditional and alternative fixed income strategies to institutional and retail clients. Its 150 professionals have decades of experience in analyzing and managing credit-related fixed income portfolios using a research-based security selection approach

Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE: PRU), a financial services leader with approximately $667 billion of assets under management as of December 31, 2009, has operations in the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Leveraging its heritage of life insurance and asset management expertise, Prudential is focused on helping individual and institutional customers grow and protect their wealth. In the U.S., the company’s Rock symbol is an icon of strength, stability, expertise and innovation that has stood the test of time. Prudential's businesses offer a variety of products and services, including life insurance, annuities, retirement-related services, mutual funds, investment management, and real estate services. For more information, please visit http://www.news.prudential.com.

Prudential
Theresa Miller, 973-802-7455
[email protected]

Source: Prudential Fixed Income