While I appreciate Pensions & Investments' story about me in the Oct. 31 issue (“Gross eager to repeat magic that made him investing guru”), I want to correct the assertion that my departure from Pacific Investment Management Co. took place “following deteriorating investment performance ...” To the contrary, the PIMCO Total Return Fund I managed beat the benchmark Barclays U.S. Aggregate index in the six months before my September 2014 departure, and also beat it for 2013 and 2012. In fact, with the exception of a few months, the Total Return Fund far outperformed the Barclays Agg for the two-, three-, four- and five-year periods before my departure, both measured on a calendar basis as well as from my final day as portfolio manager.
As readers of my monthly Investment Outlook columns are well aware, I have never shied away from admitting a mea culpa when deserved, as I did in 2011. But as self-flagellating as I've been known to be, my performance record speaks for itself in the years before I joined Janus Capital Group.
BILL GROSS
Portfolio manager, Janus Global
Unconstrained Bond strategy
Newport Beach, Calif.