Gross' fund at Janus Capital suffers net redemptions as performance trails

Bill Gross's Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund suffered its first month of net client redemptions last month since he joined as performance returns trailed peers. Investors pulled $18.5 million from the fund in February, leaving it with about $1.45 billion in assets, Chicago-based research firm Morningstar Inc. estimated. The fund has declined 0.8% this year, trailing 96% of similarly managed funds, Morningstar said. (More: Janus unconstrained fund attracts least net new money since Bill Gross took over) The redemptions are a setback for Mr. Gross, 70, who fueled much of the fund's growth last year as assets surged from about $13 million before he joined. Richard M. Weil, chief executive officer of Janus Capital Group Inc., said on a Jan. 22 conference call that more than $700 million of the fund's assets came from Mr. Gross himself. The firm saw an 18% increase in profit last quarter as it attracted net new money for the first time in more than five years. Janus reported $2 billion in net subscriptions for the fourth quarter, mostly into bond funds. Mr. Gross and his family held a 51.2% stake in the fund as of Dec. 31, according to a Janus filing, with a market value of about $739 million at year-end. Mr. Gross previously ran the world's biggest bond fund, the Pimco Total Return Fund, at Newport Beach, Calif.-based Pacific Investment Management Co., the firm he co-founded in 1971 before abruptly departing for Janus on Sept. 26.