Investors find shelter in ETFs after leaving Pimco

New York

ON Sept 26, after Bill Gross quit Pimco and the Total Return Fund he had run for 27 years, California-based EP Wealth Advisors decided to pull the plug that same Friday. Ending its investment in Total Return left it with US$130 million in uninvested assets and one weekend to decide what to do with it.

"We assumed with that level of assets our due diligence process was not going to get done in three days, so we needed a place to park the money temporarily," said Kevin Ashworth, EP's investment director. EP had invested in Total Return for more than a decade, and it was the firm's largest fixed income position.