Jeffrey Gundlach brushed off a rebuke from retired “bond king” Bill Gross, who said the DoubleLine Capital founder wasn’t up to filling his shoes as the dominant force in the US fixed-income market.

“It’s sad for somebody that’s been out of the business for 10 years and is still trying to exorcise the demons,” Gundlach said in response to comments from Gross on Monday that criticized his investment success. “But I hope he’s doing fine.”

Gross, in an interview with Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast, criticized Gundlach, saying he wasn’t anywhere near being crowned a “bond king.”

“I never wanted that title, I never embraced it, I really don’t know what it means,” Gundlach said as part of a panel at the Future Proof conference for the wealth management industry in Huntington Beach, California. “We’re doing great, our five-year numbers are great, things are good. And we manage a lot more than $55 billion,” which was a number Gross threw out to knock DoubleLine’s size.

A representative for Bill Gross did not respond to a request for comment.

To be a bond king, Gundlach would need a “kingdom,” Gross said of Gundlach during the podcast.

Their feud has deep roots. Gross, who built Pacific Investment Management Co. over the decades into a bond giant, told Bloomberg News in 2019 that Gundlach wouldn’t have made for a good “bond king,” claiming that if anyone were to hold that title, it might have been the late Scott Minerd, who at the time was the chief investment officer at Guggenheim Partners.

At Tuesday’s event in Huntington Beach, Gundlach said he doesn’t want to manage more money than he already does, citing roughly $100 billion assets under management for his firm. He added that he stopped marketing his largest fund more than a decade ago.

“This idea that your AUM defines you, it’s just weird. I’ve capped many of my strategies that I could have raised twice, three times as much money but I didn’t think there’d be fun, I didn’t think I’d be happier doing that,” Gundlach said. “I actually thought it would be more difficult. Because along with that is more clients, more hassles and probably incrementally less rewarding because you’re less successful in terms of results.”

“I hope he retires and feels better about himself,” Gundlach said of Gross.

--With assistance from Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal.

This article was provided by Bloomberg News.