Aside from Gross, the best-known local resident is developer Donald Bren, the billionaire chairman of Irvine Co., which owns Fashion Island, an upscale retail area across the street from Pimco’s new 20-story office tower, as well as many of the offices in the surrounding prestigious Newport Center commercial area.

“This is Bren-ville,” Moehlman said, gesturing toward the round outline of Fashion Island, which features upscale stores such as Neiman Marcus, Vineyard Vines and Restoration Hardware, along with an outpost of the trendy Fig & Olive Mediterranean restaurants.

Pimco -- Newport Beach’s second-biggest employer, with about 1,100 local employees, according to a 2012 city report -- declined to comment on its instructions to employees on talking about Gross’s departure, which followed clashes with management. Three Pimco workers walking to lunch in the Fashion Island area declined to comment on Gross’s departure, saying they were told not to speak about it. A woman at Starbucks whose husband works for the $2 trillion bond firm also said she was instructed not to discuss the situation.

Fund Redemptions

Gross’s departure has sparked an investor retreat from his former firm’s funds. The Pimco Total Return Fund suffered an estimated $23.5 billion of redemptions last month, its worst month ever for withdrawals. The largest daily redemption occurred the day Gross left, the firm said yesterday in a statement. Gross, who will remain in Newport Beach, will run a startup fund with few assets for Denver-based Janus.

At Newport Beach’s Resort at Pelican Hill, where executives play rounds of golf on the Tom Fazio-designed golf course or meet for drinks at the Pelican Grill, visitors spoke of shock at the upheaval. Chris Britt, a founding partner at Newport Beach- based Marwit Investment Management LLC, said he did a double- take when he saw headlines cross on Gross’s departure while working out on a life-cycle machine at the gym early on the morning of Sept. 26.

‘A Stunner’

“Everybody was stunned,” Britt said while chatting in the lobby at Pelican Hill. “People were certainly noticing the soap opera over the past year or so, but it was still a stunner to hear that the founder of Pimco left.”

Robert “Buck” Bennett, president of SeaCountry Group, an Encinitas, California-based homebuilder, said Pimco is “crazy” for letting Gross go. Bennett was having drinks with bankers at the local Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar to discuss a possible business deal in Newport Beach.

“Bill Gross is Pimco,” Bennett said, giving heavy emphasis to the “is.” “You have to be dumb, blind and crazy to not know about Bill Gross and all that’s been going on there.”