Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive officer of DoubleLine Capital, shook off Bill Gross’s comments at the Future Proof conference in Huntington Beach, California that suggested he couldn’t wear the crown of “bond king.”
“I don’t care,” Gundlach said Tuesday at the event, in an interview that was aired by CNBC. “It’s sad” somebody who has been “out of the business” for about a decade may still be trying to “exorcise the demons,” Gundlach said. “I hope he’s doing fine.”
Gross was known as the “bond king” when he exited fixed-income giant Pacific Investment Management Co. in 2014. He then went on to work at Janus Henderson before retiring in 2019.
During a live recording of the Odd Lots podcast at the Future Proof conference, Gross said that “to be a bond king or queen, you need a kingdom,” according to a Bloomberg news report on Sept. 11. He remarked, “Pimco had $2 trillion, ok? DoubleLine’s got like $55 billion. Come on — that’s no kingdom, that’s like Latvia or Estonia.”
Read: Bill Gross quit by leaving a letter ‘in the middle of the night,’ says Pimco
Also see: Storied ‘bond king’ Bill Gross to retire from Janus Henderson
Gundlach said on Tuesday, “does the world really need to battle any billionaire ‘bond kings?’ The DoubleLine CEO said he never wanted or embraced that title, saying “I really don’t know what it means.”
According to Gundlach, DoubleLine is doing “great” and the firm manages a lot more assets than the $55 billion that Gross cited at the Future Proof event.
“It’s about $100 billion,” said Gundlach, who added that he stopped marketing his largest fund 12 years ago. “I actually don’t want to manage more money than I do.”
Meanwhile, in the bond market on Tuesday, long-term Treasury yields fell and shorter-term rates edged higher.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
slipped 2.4 basis points to 4.263%, according to Dow Jones Market data. The two-year Treasury yield
BX:TMUBMUSD02Y
rose one basis point to 5.003%.
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