Pimco Income expands to largest ‘bond mutual fund’

Bloomberg

Dan Ivascyn’s Pimco Income Fund keeps raking in money. The fund, co-managed by Ivascyn and Alfred Murata, celebrates its 10th anniversary this week by becoming the largest actively managed fixed-income mutual fund with $79.1 billion, according to Pimco’s website.
Pimco Income passed Metropolitan West Total Return Bond Fund as investors added approximately $3 billion in March, a monthly record, according to estimates by Bloomberg. “Our investment process and active management have produced significant gains for our clients and we believe the current environment will continue to present more opportunities for investors who actively pursue them,” Ivascyn, 47, said in an emailed statement.
Pimco Income is winning cash at a time when many investors are fleeing active funds because of higher fees and lower performance. Ivascyn’s main fund led actively run stock and bond funds in attracting deposits in 2016 and has outperformed 99 percent of its Bloomberg peers for the last three- and five-year periods. The MetWest fund managed $78.9 billion as of April 3. A spokesman for the company declined to comment.
NEW ERA
The Pimco fund is now the third-largest fixed-income fund, behind the passive Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund and Vanguard Total Bond Market II Index Fund. They had $143.8 billion and $121 billion in assets, respectively, as of Feb. 28, according to Bloomberg data.
Pimco Income’s growth represents the new era at Pacific Investment Management Co. since the September 2014 exit of Bill Gross, the
Newport Beach, California-based firm’s co-founder whose acrimonious departure prompted a surge of outflows. Ivascyn replaced Gross
as chief investment officer, and last year the company hired Emmanuel Roman from Man Group Plc as chief executive officer.