Bill Gross
Formal First Name
William (Bill)
Nick Name
The Bond King
Dates
4/13/1944 - present
Bill Gross is a legendary fund manager most known in the investment world as the king of bonds. He has been a pioneer in fixed income investing for more than 40 years, crediting his mathematical prowess and risk instincts to his experience playing professional blackjack. Gross still applies many of the principles learned then for spreading risk and calculating odds to his investment decisions. Gross is also a regular keynote speaker at global events and a noted philanthropist and generous donor.
Bill Gross Professional Experience / Academic History
Professional Experience
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Portfolio Manager
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Co-Founder, Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer
Academic History
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MBA in Business and Managerial Economics
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AB in Psychology
EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION
- Gross was born in 1943 in Middletown, Ohio.
- He graduated from Duke University with a degree in psychology.
- He joined the military at the age of 24 and was deployed to Vietnam.
- After his military service, he went on to business school at the University of California in Los Angeles.
BLACKJACK
- After earning his undergraduate degree, Gross set out to Vegas where he worked at the blackjack tables, counting cards for up to 16 hours a day.
- From his months of counting cards, he learned a vital lesson that he applies in his investment decisions: taking too much leverage and having too much debt will bring the house of cards tumbling down.
- He started out with $2,000 in his pockets in Vegas and left with $10,000 after four months.
PIMCO
- Gross co-founded PIMCO with Jim Muzzy and Bill Podlich in 1971 with only about $12 million of assets.
- With an AUM of approximately $2 trillion, PIMCO became the largest active fixed income fund management firm in the world during the first half of 2014.
- He left PIMCO in September 2014 to manage a smaller fund with Janus Capital Group.
JANUS CAPITAL GROUP
- On the day his move to Janus was publicly announced, Janus's share price climbed 43% representing a historical one-day gain for the company.
- Also, the fund managed by Gross saw its AUM climb to almost $80 million at the end of September 2014 from $13 million at the end of August 2014.
- On February 4, 2019, Janus announced his retirement at the age of 74.
AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS
- Morningstar Fixed Income Manager of the Decade for 2000 to 2009 and Fixed Income Manager of the Year for 1998, 2000, and 2007
- Gross became the first portfolio manager inducted into the Fixed Income Analysts Society’s Hall of Fame in 1996.
- He received the Bond Market Association’s Distinguished Service Award in 2000.
- He was awarded the Money Management Lifetime Achievement Award by the Institutional Investor Magazine in 2011.
- He was called "the nation's most prominent bond investor" by the New York Times and "the consigliere to the world's financial elite" by Forbes.
- In 2014, he made the list of self-made billionaires and powerful people in the United States according to Forbes.