Janus Henderson Sees Investors Pull Out $8.4 Billion in Quarter

(Bloomberg) -- Janus Henderson, the money manager that parted ways with Bill Gross after a bout of underperformance from the bond legend, has seen investor withdrawals accelerate across most strategies.

The firm saw outflows almost double in the fourth quarter to $8.4 billion, with many of the withdrawals coming from its equity funds. Investors pulled $4.1 billion from Janus Henderson’s equity funds compared with redemptions of $1.3 billion from its bond funds.

Key insights

• Assets under management dropped to $328.5 billion at the end of 2018 from $370.8 billion a year earlier, according to the company’s earnings statement.
• The firm’s net income plunged to $106.8 million in the fourth quarter compared with $471.7 million in the same period a year earlier.
• Bill Gross, head of the Janus Henderson Global Unconstrained Bond Fund that has less that $1 billion under management, announced his retirement from the fund manager on Monday.

Digging Deeper

• In the past year, only 36 percent of fixed-income assets outperformed their benchmark, compared with 88 percent in the previous three years, according to the statement. Just 35 percent of alternative investors beat their benchmarks in 2018, down from 94 percent over a three year time frame.
• “We faced the same global market challenges and headwinds as the wider industry, combined with an aggregate $18 billion outflow, which was disappointing,” Dick Weil, chief executive officer of Janus Henderson Group, said in the statement.

Market Reaction

• The asset manager’s share price has fallen more than 40 percent in the past 12 months.

To contact the reporter on this story: Suzy Waite in London at swaite8@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Shelley Robinson at ssmith118@bloomberg.net, Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam

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