William H. Gross
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William H. Gross (born 1944) is an American financial manager and investment author.
He was born in Middletown, Ohio, and graduated from Duke University. He served in the Navy, and earned an MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles. Gross briefly played blackjack professionally in Las Vegas, and has said that he applies many of his gambling methods for spreading risk and calculating odds to his investment decisions. In the 1990s he authored two popular-market books on investing, Bill Gross on Investing and Everything You've Heard About Investing Is Wrong.
Gross is one of the world's largest mutual fund managers, focusing mostly on bonds. Called "the nation's most prominent bond investor" by the New York Times[1], he co-founded Pacific Investment Management (PIMCO) and currently manages PIMCO's Total Return fund (the world's largest bond fund and fifth largest mutual fund) and several smaller ones.[2]
In September 2008, by holding large positions in agency backed mortgage bonds of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Gross netted U.S. $1.7 billion after the Federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac[3] for which he had lobbied[citation needed].
According to the Forbes 400 in 2007, he is the 380th richest person in America[4] and the 897th richest person in the world,[5] with a net worth of $1.3 billion.
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[edit] Personal life
Gross is also a prominent philatelist.[6] As of November 2005, he became the third person (after Robert Zoellner in the 1990s and Benjamin K Miller pre-1925 [7] ) to form a complete collection of 19th century United States postage stamps. In October 2005, he purchased at auction for $2.97 million a unique plate block of the famous 1918 24-cent U.S. airmail stamps known as the "Inverted Jenny," featuring an engraving of a Curtiss JN-4 biplane printed upside-down. He then traded the Inverted Jenny Plateblock to Donald Sundman, President of Mystic Stamp Company, a stamp dealer, for a 1-cent 1868 "Z Grill" depicting Benjamin Franklin, thus completing Gross's 19th century collection.[8]
In 2006, Gross donated $9.1 million to Médecins Sans Frontières.[9]
[edit] Bibliography
- Bill Gross (1997). Everything You've Heard About Investing Is Wrong!. Crown Business. ISBN 0-8129-2839-3.
- Bill Gross (1998). Bill Gross on Investing. Wiley. ISBN 0-471-28325-8.
[edit] References
- ^ Danny Hakim. "A Quarter of Gains, But Doubt Persists," New York Times. 07/08/2001.
- ^ Pimco[not specific enough to verify]
- ^ "Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac Rescue Nets $1.7bn for Bill Gross". http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/2795966/Fannie-Mae-and-Freddie-Mac-rescue-nets-%241.7bn-for-Bill-Gross.html.
- ^ The 400 Riches Americans, Forbes, 20 September 2007
- ^ The World's Billionaires, Forbes, 5 May 2008
- ^ "The Billionaire Stamp Collector," Wall Street Journal. 05/25/2007.
- ^ The “Holy Grail” of Stamp Collections
- ^ Neil Irwin. "Lessons Learned, Investor Builds Portfolio of Stamps," Washington Post. 05/27/2006.
- ^ http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/donate/form990_2007.pdf
