Bill Gross

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This article concerns the PIMCO bond manager; for the business-startup manager, see Bill Gross (entrepreneur). For the Roman Catholic archbishop, see William Hickley Gross. For the French professional footballer, see William Gros.
Bill Gross
Born William Hunt Gross
(1944-04-13) April 13, 1944 (age 73)
Middletown, Ohio, U.S.
Residence Laguna Beach, California, U.S.
Nationality American
Alma mater Duke University
University of California, Los Angeles
Occupation Investor, fund manager, and philanthropist
Known for Founding of PIMCO
Managing the PIMCO Total Return Fund
Net worth US$2.4 billion (February 2017)
Spouse(s) Sue J. Frank

William Hunt "Bill" Gross (born April 13, 1944) is an American investor, fund manager, and philanthropist. He co-founded Pacific Investment Management Co. Gross ran PIMCO's $270.0 billion Total Return Fund (PTTRX). Gross left Pimco to join Janus in September 2014.

Early life and education[edit]

Gross was born in Middletown, Ohio, the son of Shirley (Tait), a homemaker, and Sewell Mark Gross, a sales executive for AK Steel Holding.[1](subscription required)[2] Part of his family is originally from Winnipeg, Canada.[3] He was raised a Presbyterian.[4] He moved with his parents to San Francisco in 1954.[2] Gross graduated from Duke University in 1966 as an Angier B. Duke Scholar, and with a degree in psychology.[5] At Duke, he joined Phi Kappa Psi.[6] He then served in the Navy and earned an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management in 1971. Gross briefly played blackjack professionally in Las Vegas, Nevada, and has said that he applies many of his gambling methods for spreading risk and calculating odds to his investment decisions.

Investment career[edit]

Gross is a CFA Charterholder, who earned his credentials while working as an investment analyst for Pacific Mutual Life between 1971 and 1976.[7]

Gross managed one of the world's largest mutual funds, focusing mostly on bonds. Called "the nation's most prominent bond investor" by The New York Times,[8] he co-founded Pacific Investment Management (PIMCO) and managed PIMCO's Total Return fund (the world's largest bond fund) and several smaller ones until his departure in September 2014.[9]

In the 1990s he authored two popular-market books on investing, Bill Gross on Investing and Everything You've Heard About Investing is Wrong! In September 2008, by holding large positions in agency-backed mortgage bonds of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Gross's funds netted U.S. $1.7 billion after the federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.[10]

Personal life[edit]

Gross has been married twice. In 1968, he married Pamela Roberts. They had two children: Jeff and Jennifer. They later divorced. In 1985, he married Sue J. Frank; they have one son Nick.[11] He is a prominent stamp collector.[12] As of November 2005, he became the third person (after Robert Zoellner in the 1990s and Benjamin K. Miller pre-1925)[13] 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 plate block to Donald Sundman, President of Mystic Stamp Company, a stamp dealer, for a 1-cent 1868 "Z Grill" depicting Benjamin Franklin (one of only two known to exist), thus completing Gross's 19th century collection.[14]

In 2014 Gross was reported as one of a number of "prominent investors [who] have taken to Transcendental Meditation".[15]

Wealth and philanthropy[edit]

In 2005, Gross donated $23.5 million to Duke University, $20 million of which was set aside for financial aid.[16] In 2006, Gross donated to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières the $9.1m[17] that he earned from the auction at Shreves Philatelic Galleries of his British philatelic collections.[18] Over the years, Gross has become the largest donor in history to Doctors Without Borders at approximately $25m. His Scandinavian and Finnish collections were sold by Spink auction house in May 2008 to make a donation to Jeffrey Sachs Millennium Villages Project at Columbia University.[19] Gross and his wife also donated $20 million to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian for women's health and $10 million to the University of California, Irvine to found a stem cell research center at its school of medicine.[20]

In 2012, Gross and his wife, Sue, donated $20 million to Cedars-Sinai (Los Angeles) for the new Sue and Bill Gross Surgery and Procedure Center. The center will take up the fifth floor of the Pavilion, which is scheduled to open in summer 2013.[citation needed]

In 2013, Gross and his wife donated $20 million to Mercy Ships. This will be designated to build toward a new hospital ship, currently in the design phase, to join the current hospital ship, the Africa Mercy, in delivering medical services to the poor. In honor of this donation, the hospital on board the new ship will be named the Sue and Bill Gross Healing Hospital.[21]

In 2016, Gross and his wife donated $40 million to the University of California, Irvine to establish a nursing school.[22][20]

Publications and works[edit]

  • 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. 

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Miss Roberts Becomes Bride". The New York Times. 1968-12-22. Retrieved 2010-09-04. 
  2. ^ a b Brewster, Deborah (2008-09-12). "Man in the News: Bill Gross". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 2011-07-11. Retrieved 2010-09-04. 
  3. ^ Joanna Slater (2012-08-23). "The obsessive life of bond guru Bill Gross - The Globe and Mail". M.theglobeandmail.com. Retrieved 2013-11-01. 
  4. ^ Gross, William H. (1998). Bill Gross on Investing. John Wiley and Sons. p. 79. ISBN 0-471-28325-8. 
  5. ^ CNN Library (March 7, 2014). "Bill Gross Fast Facts". CNN. 
  6. ^ Grand Catalogue of the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity - Twelfth Edition, p. 132: Bernard C. Harris Publishing Company, 1985.
  7. ^ Loth, Richard. "The Greatest Investors: William H. Gross". Investopedia. Retrieved 2013-11-01. 
  8. ^ "MUTUAL FUNDS REPORT; A Quarter Of Gains, But Doubt Persists". New York Times. 2001-07-08. Retrieved 2013-11-01. 
  9. ^ "Global". Pimco.Com. Retrieved 2013-11-01. 
  10. ^ Quinn, James (11 September 2008). "Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac Rescue Nets $1.7bn for Bill Gross". The Daily Telegraph. London. 
  11. ^ "Bill Gross Fast Facts". CNN.com. Retrieved 2013-11-01. 
  12. ^ Frank, Robert (2007-04-25). "The Billionaire Stamp Collector - The Wealth Report - WSJ". Blogs.wsj.com. Retrieved 2013-11-01. 
  13. ^ "General Research Division | The New York Public Library". Nypl.org. Retrieved 2013-11-01. 
  14. ^ "Lessons Learned, Investor Builds Portfolio of Stamps". Washingtonpost.com. 2006-05-26. Retrieved 2013-11-01. 
  15. ^ Goodkind, Nicole. "Could this be the key to success on Wall Street? Hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio thinks so". Retrieved 15 May 2014. The technique ... is popular with folks like Bridgewater's Ray Dalio (who offers TM to his 400 employees), Bill Gross, Dan Loeb, Nigol Koulajian (Quest Partners) and Kevin Kimberlin (Spencer Trask & Co). 
  16. ^ "Sue and Bill Gross Give $23.5 Million to Duke, Primarily for Financial Aid | Duke Today". Today.duke.edu. 2005-01-19. Retrieved 2013-11-01. 
  17. ^ Peter Aspden (September 25, 2007). "Magna Carta to be auctioned in New York". Financial Times. 
  18. ^ Results of the auction, William H. Gross Collection auction official website ; retrieved 7 August 2009.
  19. ^ Main items described in Julia Lee, "Scandinavia gems to be sold for charity", Stamp Magazine, 74-6, June 2008, page 8 and in "Bill Gross Collection of Classic Scandinavian in charity auction", Gibbons Stamp Monthly, June 2008, page 18.
  20. ^ a b "UCI nursing will benefit from record $40 million gift". Ocregister.com. Retrieved 2017-02-23. 
  21. ^ "Mercy Ships Receives $20 Million Gift from PIMCO Founder, Bill Gross and wife Sue Gross". Mercy Ships. Archived from the original on 23 October 2013. Retrieved 21 October 2013. 
  22. ^ "Sue and Bill Gross commit $40 million to establish nursing school". News.uci.edu. 2016-01-12. Retrieved 2017-02-23. 

External links[edit]

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