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September 26, 2014 at 10:23 AM
Bill Gross announced early Friday that he is leaving PIMCO, the firm he co-founded in 1971, and will join Janus Capital Group on Sept. 29, where he will manage the Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund (JUCTX), which launched in May 2014, and “related strategies,” according to Janus.
PIMCO said late Friday that Daniel Ivascyn, 44, is the firm’s new group chief investment officer. Ivascyn has served as deputy CIO since January and has managed the $38 billion PIMCO Income Fund (PONDX); he joined PIMCO in 1998. The firm also appointed Scott Mather, Mark Kiesel and Mihir Worah as portfolio managers for the PIMCO Total Return Fund (PTTRX) and ETF (BOND).
Gross, 70, will operate from a new Janus office that will be built in Newport Beach, California (where PIMCO is based) and will be responsible for “building out the firm’s efforts in global macro fixed income strategies,” according to his new employer. Those efforts, Janus said, will be “separate and complementary” to its existing credit-based fixed income platform built under the company’s fixed income chief investment officer, Gibson Smith.
In a statement released by Janus, Gross cited his “longstanding relationship with and respect for CEO Dick Weil” as one of the reasons for joining Janus.
“I look forward to a mutually supportive partnership with Fixed Income CIO Gibson Smith and his team,” Gross said. “They have delivered excellent results across their strategies, which deserve more attention.”
Weil spent 15 years at PIMCO, including 10 years as the firm’s COO, before joining Janus in February 2010.
Gross further said that he looks forward to “returning my full focus to the fixed income markets and investing, giving up many of the complexities that go with managing a large, complicated organization.” Janus CEO Weil said that “With Bill leading our global macro efforts and Gibson our credit-based fixed income team, I am confident Janus will be able to meet the needs of virtually any client.”
In the blunt statement about Gross’ resignation, PIMCO CEO Hodge said “While we are grateful for everything Bill contributed to building our firm and delivering value to PIMCO’s clients, over the course of this year it became increasingly clear that the firm’s leadership and Bill have fundamental differences about how to take PIMCO forward.”
PIMCO had been struggling with underperformance of its flagship PIMCO Total Return mutual fund (PTTRX) and large outflows from the fund (see PIMCO Outflows Hit $26.5 Billion for 2014 as Vanguard Shines and PIMCO Outflows Slow, Firm Hires ‘Distressed Credit’ Manager). More recently, reports arose that the SEC was looking into Total Return’s ETF counterpart, BOND, though no wrongdoing was implied in the investigation (see SEC Probes PIMCO Total Return ETF; Firm Says It’s Cooperating).
