Bill Gross Sues PIMCO for $200M

The former co-founder has claimed he was wrongfully pushed out of the firm and denied “hundreds of millions of dollars” in earned compensation.

billgrosspimcoBill Gross is suing PIMCO and its parent company Allianz for at least $200 million for forcefully driving him out in September 2014. 

A complaint filed on Thursday in the California Superior Court in Orange County accused PIMCO of constructive termination, breach of contract, and breach of good faith. 

The lawsuit claimed a “cabal” of PIMCO managing directors schemed to push Gross out of the firm he founded, “in order to take, without compensation, [his] percentage ownership in the profitability of PIMCO.”

It added these executives were “driven by lust for power, greed, and a desire to improve their own financial position and reputation at the expense of investors and decency.”

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By forcing Gross out of PIMCO, younger executives split his share of the bonus pool, the complaint said.

“Their improper, dishonest, and unethical behavior must now be exposed,” it said.

The former bond king quit the firm last September to join Colorado-based investment house Janus Capital.

Related: Fade to Black & Bill Gross Quits PIMCO to Join Janus

UK Health Foundation Appoints CIO

A former asset manager has taken the top investment role at one of the UK’s largest health charities.

The Health Foundation—a UK-based £900 million ($1.4 billion) charity—has appointed Aidan Kearney as its chief investment officer.

He replaces Andrew Chapman, former pension investment manager at the John Lewis Partnership, who had been the foundation’s CIO since June 2012.

Kearney is a former fund-of-funds manager at groups including Aberdeen Asset Management, Credit Suisse, Artemis, and Premier Asset Management. He left Aberdeen last year following its purchase of Scottish Widows Investment Partnership and the merger of two funds-of-funds ranges.

At The Health Foundation, Kearney will oversee a portfolio and strategy designed to enable the foundation to spend roughly £30 million a year on activities and health care improvement programs.

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He joined the group on September 1, a spokesperson for The Health Foundation said.

According to its most recent annual report, from December 2013, in that year The Health Foundation posted a 12.5% return, comfortably beating its benchmark. Mercer was the investment consultant advising the foundation’s investment committee in 2013, but was replaced by Cambridge Associates in January 2014.

Related: Advocate’s Leslie Lenzo: How to Take a Health Care Portfolio Active

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