PIMCO says its Dublin-based PIMCO Funds: Global Investors Series plc GlS) have secured regulatory approval for distribution in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Italy, France, Spain, and Germany, with approvals ending in Austria and Luxembourg.
The funds were launched in 1997 and had reached $1.6 billion by id-2002. Today, the GIS Funds have attracted close to $6 billion; this mounts to nearly 30% of PIMCO Europe’s total assets under management. n 2003 alone the GIS complex grew by 151% as European institutional investors poured money into the PIMCO funds.
PIMCO’s GIS Funds aim to provide European institutional investors with access to a range of specialist fixed income strategies which have been structured to provide simplified administration. Investors can choose from cash and cash-enhanced strategies to specialised emerging market debt and portable bond alpha strategies.
The three most popular funds within GIS have each attracted more than $1billion as at 31 December 2003; The Total Return Bond Fund, Global Bond Fund and High Yield Bond Fund have attracted $1,276m, $1,046m and $1,314m respectively. Also, the Euro Fund grew by over $500 million in 2003 alone.
“We have spent considerable time listening to what clients want and have developed the Series to reflect those requirements,” says PeterPaul Pardi, Head of European Institutional Remarketing for the GIS funds. “The simplified administration means that clients can choose their favoured strategies in a range of currency share classes including US dollar, euro, sterling, and Swiss Franc, hedged or unhedged.”
Joe McDevitt, head of PIMCO Europe adds that the funds now have 175 institutional and remarketing clients, 68 of them secured in the last year. “Private Banks, Remarketing organizations, distributors and consultants have all seen that they can offer their clients simplified access to PIMCO’s successful strategies,” he says.
PIMCO’s London office is now responsible for over $21 billion of UK and continental European client assets, and more than $374 billion globally.