06/05/2014
Allianz shareholders want change at Pimco
Major shareholders in the Allianz group will publicly ask the directors of the group to manage the problem of underperformance at Pimco, whose flagship bond fund has seen outflows in the billions of dollars since the departure of Mohamed El-Erian, former CIO of Pimco, due to his differences with Bill Gross, the news agency Reuters reports. Union Investment announced a desire to publicly express its concerns on 7 May at the general shareholders’ meeting of the group, which has not yet responded to these calls. “Currently, Allianz shares are suffering very clearly from a downturn at Pimco,” Ingo Speich, a portfolio manager at Union, tells Reuters. Since the beginning of the year, shares in Allianz have underperformed the Stoxx Europe 600 insurnace index by about 4.5% due to problems at Pimco. Pimco last year contributed USD3.2bn to operating results at Allianz, but its flagship fund, the Total Return Fund, still saw outflows of USD3.1bn in April, and more than USD55bn since May 2013, according to Morningstar figures. Major shareholders would like the management structure set up since the departure of El-Erian to be reviewed, with six deputy investment officers who report to Bill Gross, whose pay is perceived by some as too high. The shareholders would also like a long-term plan to be shown to them for Pimco’s plans to extend beyond the bond universe.
