Pimco, which saw high-profile bond manager Bill Gross depart amid internal discord in 2014, has since come on to become the largest active fund manager, the Financial Times reported.
Investors pulled hundreds of billions of dollars from the investment house following Gross’s departure. But a revival for the fixed income specialist also points to a wave of demand for bond funds this year, even as central banks around the world prepare to implement tighter monetary policies which could hit prices for such securities, FT reported.
Pimco attracted almost $50bn to its funds in the six months to the end of June, according to figures compiled for the Financial Times by Morningstar, the data provider. The group manages $1.6tn, down from $1.9tn when Mr Gross left in September 2014. The haul came as fixed income funds pulled in $355bn in the first five months of this year, putting the sector on course to beat 2016’s full-year inflows of $375bn, according to Morningstar.
In a sign of the dominance of low-fee funds, Pimco remains only the third best-selling mutual fund manager in the world, behind BlackRock and Vanguard, which have large passive fund ranges, FT noted.
New money has been concentrated in just one product: Pimco’s $130bn Income Fund run by Dan Ivascyn, who replaced Mr Gross as chief investment officer. Mr Ivascyn’s fund became the world’s largest actively managed bond fund earlier this year.