The Bond King is dead, all hail PIMCO! “Well,” Mr Market hastens to add before the legal profession descends upon him with the wrath of righteous litigation, “not technically dead”. Rather, Bill Gross, market superstar, bond trader extraordinaire, and part-time moustache aficionado, has left the building of the firm he helped to create. PIMCO, itself a giant of the fund management world, has lost the Bond King himself to young upstart Janus Capital, eager for a fight and now sporting a true heavyweight.
Luckily, the world of fund management, while bearing a startling resemblance to Fight Club, is not so decorous as to have a no-talking rule. This is especially fortunate for Mr Market, as he gets paid by the word. The word on the Wall Street is that, while ‘King Bill’ jumped, it was only moments before being pushed. Antics such as wearing sunglasses to a mutual fund meeting and penning an ode to his dead cat that was included in a technical missive to investors did not endear himself to cut-throat consultants. Mr Market, a hunger in his eyes that he usually saves for venture capitalists and the bingo hall, approves greatly of the speed in which a loyalty, built over a 43-year career and the billions of dollars made at PIMCO, was discarded.
