New York City’s pension funds have pulled $4.9 billion from Pimco since Bill Gross left the firm in September.
A City spokesman confirmed that the pullout was due to “organizational change” within the firm.
From Reuters:
“The New York City Pension Funds recently transitioned out of $4.9 billion in Pimco accounts due to concerns over recent organizational changes,” Eric Sumberg, a spokesman for New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, said in a statement.
Gross shocked bond markets in September by leaving Pimco, which he co-founded, for smaller rival Janus Capital, where he now manages the Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund (JUCAX.O).
The assets pulled from Pimco by the city pension funds were distributed to the city’s existing asset managers, Sumberg said.
Existing managers include BlackRock (BLK.N), Goldman Sachs (GS.N) and State Street (STT.N), among others.
According to Morningstar, the Pimco Total Return Fund, formerly managed by Gross, had record outflows of $103 billion in 2014. Investors pulled $150 billion from Pimco’s U.S. open-end mutual funds for 2014, Morningstar data also showed.
The New York pension funds still hold $2.4 billion in Treasury inflation-protected securities (TIPS) accounts with Pimco.
“At this time the Systems are in the midst of a search for TIPS mangers,” Sumberg said in the statement.
As noted above, New York’s pension funds haven’t exited Pimco entirely; they still have $2.4 billion invested with the firm.
The City’s pension funds collectively manage $158.7 billion in assets.
Photo by Tim (Timothy) Pearce via Flickr CC License