The Pimco Total Return exchange-traded fund saw $448 million in outflows Friday following news of the departure of longtime manager Bill Gross, but outflows slowed on Monday to $98 million, according to a Pimco spokesperson.
Friday’s outflows represented a record for the ETF. With $3.12 billion in assets as of Monday, the ETF is a fraction of the Pimco Total Return Fund, the $222 billion bond fund that Gross had managed since 1987.
Gross, dubbed the “Bond King” after Coins2Day’s 2002 feature on the investor, co-founded Pacific Investment Management Co, a $2 trillion asset management firm, in 1971.
Trading in the Total Return ETF hit 5.04 million shares on Friday, its busiest day of activity.
Dave Nadig, chief investment officer at ETF research firm ETF.com, which tracks ETF flows, said the iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, saw about $403 million in inflows on Monday.
“My guess is some of that is just people parking their BOND money into AGG,” Nadig said.
Last week, Pimco said the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether it inflated the returns of the ETF, the latest in a series of incidents that preceded Gross’ decision to leave the company for Denver-based Janus Capital Group.
Gross’ departure from Pimco was preceded by months of clashes between the star investor and the firm’s executive committee that got progressively worse, according to sources familiar with the situation.
