Bill Gross leaves Pimco for Denver-based Janus
Legendary bond investor Bill Gross has left Pacific Investment Management, the firm he founded in 1971, to join JanusCapital Group, where he will manage a newly created bond fund.
The move follows a year of heavy outflows from his flagship bond fund and a fight with his former chief executive and heir apparent.
Pimco, a unit of German insurer Allianz SE, was getting ready to fireGross just before he resigned, according to people familiar with the matter. The move was driven by Pimco, not by Allianz, these people said, and comes as tensions had bubbled up at the firm in recent weeks.
The news marks a huge shift in themutual-fund industry, where the 70-year-old Gross widely was viewed as one of the most influential bond investors of all time. He built Pimco into a $2 trillion bond powerhouse, and his $222 billion Pimco Total Return fund is the largest bond mutual fund in the world.
Grosswill manage a newly created Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund and related strategies at the Denverbased mutual-fund firm, Janus said in a news release Friday.
The move is an abrupt change for Gross, whowill be moving to a much smaller and less prestigious firm than the one he left. Janus CEO Richard Weil joined the company fromPimco in 2010, where he had been chief operating officer.
Gross is to begin working at Janus on Monday and will start managing the bond fund and strategies fund Oct. 6. He will be based in Janus’ new office in Newport Beach, Calif., which is also where Pimco is located.
In a statement released by Janus, Gross said: “I look forward to returning my full focus to the fixed income markets and investing, giving upmany of the complexities that go with managing a large, complicated organization. I chose Janus as my next