Pimco Clients Withdrew $3 Billion From Total Return Last Month

(Bloomberg) -- Investors pulled money from Pimco’s flagship fund last month, the 26th straight month it has experienced redemptions.

The $3 billion withdrawal from the Pimco Total Return Fund in June compared with $2.7 billion in May, $5.6 billion in April and $7.3 billion in March, according to the Newport Beach, California-based firm. Assets in the fund have plunged to $102.8 billion from a peak of $293 billion in April 2013.

Pimco’s main fund, which this year lost the title of the world’s biggest bond mutual fund, has faced record redemptions since the firm’s co-founder Bill Gross left on Sept. 26 for Denver-based Janus. The fund, now run by Scott Mather, Mark Kiesel and Mihir Worah, returned 0.2 percent this year, outperforming 67 percent of similarly run funds, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Outflows are slowing and the early client withdrawals were to be expected, Dieter Wemmer, chief financial officer at Allianz SE, the German insurer that owns Pimco, said in May.

The Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund, a passive product tracking a broad fixed-income benchmark, became the world’s biggest bond fund with $118 billion in assets at the end of May. It has lost 0.5 percent this year.

Gross, who co-founded Pimco in 1971 and built it into one of the world’s largest investment firms, departed after losing a power struggle. He now runs the $1.5 billion Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund.

 

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
Fund performance Mutual funds Money Management Executive
MORE FROM FINANCIAL PLANNING