‘Brilliant People’
Gross has expressed his appreciation for Bridgewater’s Dalio and Prince before. At a conference hosted last year by Morningstar Inc. in Chicago, Gross praised the money managers for their investing acumen.
“Just brilliant people,” Gross said at the June conference. “Dalio’s got a template, he’s got a long-term view of how economies work and how investment markets fit into that puzzle and sometimes it doesn’t work for them, but usually it does.”
Gross, 70, earned his reputation by building Pimco into a $2 trillion money manager at its peak, with some of the industry’s highest returns. His Pimco Total Return Bond Fund, which he managed until he left, ballooned to $293 billion in April 2013, before performance faltered and clients started to pull money amid concern that interest rates would rise.
Withdrawals accelerated when Gross left after a power struggle with management. Pimco Total Return’s assets have fallen to $124.7 billion through last month.
His Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund has generated 0.4 percent returns for investors through yesterday, beginning when he started managing it Oct. 6, according to data from research firm Morningstar. It is is beating 59 percent of peers, the data show.
His fund suffered its first month of net withdrawals since he joined, with clients pulling $18.5 million from the fund in February, leaving it with $1.45 billion in assets, Morningstar estimated.