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Janus to launch global bond funds

Move all part of CEO's plan to beef up fixed-income offerings at equity specialist

Janus Capital Management LLC is planning to launch a number of global fixed-income funds for U.S. and foreign investors over the coming several months.
In the next three months, Janus will launch a global high-yield fund and a global investment-grade offering aimed at the foreign market, said Colleen Denzler, head of fixed-income strategy at Janus. In six to nine months, the asset manager will roll out a series of global bond funds for U.S. advisers, she said.
Ms. Denzler said that more advisers are looking to diversify their clients’ fixed-income holdings since the stock market crash of 2008.
“Many of the top-line managers have struggled and so people are looking for diversification from that,” she said.
To support its push into global fixed income, Janus is planning to move two of its Denver-based analysts to London and hopes to hire an additional analyst in that city in the next 12 to 18 months, Ms. Denzler said.
The firm is also looking to hire an emerging-markets fixed-income specialist to help the firm get a handle on country- or region-specific opportunities, she said.
Janus Capital Group Inc., the asset manager’s parent company, has been pushing to expand its fixed-income business for the past several months. In February, it tapped Richard M. Weil, a 14-year veteran of Pacific Investment Management Co. LLC, as its chief executive. Mr. Weil has put building Janus’ fixed-income business at the top of his list.
Expanding into global fixed income is a good strategy for Janus since many investors have been looking abroad for better yields than U.S. Treasuries, said Tom Roseen, a research manager at Lipper Inc.
Year-to-date through Aug. 25, $9.4 billion had flowed into emerging-markets debt funds, compared to $9.8 billion for between 2004 and 2008, according to Lipper.
“People are asking where they can get better bang for their buck,” Mr. Roseen said.
And Janus’s research approach should differentiate itself in this environment, Mr. Roseen said.
“You have a lot of people out there saying that this economy or that economy is good, but at Janus you have people on the ground kicking the tires of the companies there,” he said.