Pacific Investment Management Co., the world’s largest active bond manager, plans to open a fixed- income fund today that will allocate money across a range of emerging-market debt, according to a person briefed on the plan.
Pimco Emerging Markets Full Spectrum Bond Fund, set to begin trading under the ticker symbol PFSIX, will invest in local-currency government debt as well as dollar-denominated sovereign and corporate bonds, according to a prospectus. The fund will be managed by Michael Gomez, co-head of Pimco’s global emerging-markets portfolio management team, and charge 99 basis points for its institutional shares.
Mark Porterfield, a spokesman for Newport Beach, California-based Pimco, declined to comment on the new fund. The person asked not to be identified because the fund wasn’t yet public.
Pimco has said it will pursue strategies with a global focus, in line with its “new normal” philosophy adopted in May 2009 to describe an era of lower returns, heightened government regulation, diminishing U.S. clout in the world economy and a bigger role for developing nations. Earlier this month, Bill Gross, Pimco’s founder and co-chief investment officer, called the peso a “great currency” and lauded Mexico for its low debt levels in a Feb. 5 Twitter post.
Emerging-market bond funds attracted $21.6 billion in net deposits in 2012 for an organic growth rate of 47%, according to research firm Morningstar Organic growth rate is the ratio of deposits over the period to beginning net assets.
