While I was at the NYSE for open, Bill Gross was at PIMCO’s headquarters in Newport Beach for a simultaneous bell ringing. The manager of the world’s largest mutual fund and the new PIMCO ETF said he rang a bell that’s been at the firm for 30 years.
“When we got a client, we rang the bell,” Gross said in a CNBC interview Thursday, speaking of the firm’s early days in the 1970s. The small group of people then at the company rang the bell and had a “celebratory” drink — of coffee or Coke, the bond manager said — before going about their business for the next one.
But those were the old days. At the end of 2011, PIMCO had over 2,000 employees and more than $1.3 trillion in assets under management.
If PIMCO Total Return ETF follows up on today’s successful launch and attracts large inflows, then we could see other active fund shops follow it into ETFs. Gross has made no secret of the fact he wants the ETF to be the largest in the industry in a couple years. We’ll see.
At the NYSE for the opening bell on PIMCO Total Return ETF’s first day of trading.