Most money raised by Gross at Janus is from one firm - WSJ

By Sudarshan Varadhan and Luciana Lopez

(Reuters) - More than 60 percent of the roughly $1.1 billion (0.72 billion pounds) raised by Bill Gross for Janus Capital Group Inc (JNS.N) came from a Morgan Stanley (MS.N) wealth management office in California, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing industry executives who have viewed confidential brokerage data.

The wealth management office in La Jolla, California, which employs one of Gross’s personal financial advisers, routed more than $700 million to Gross’s Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund (JUCAX.O) in October and November, the Journal said.

Reuters has not been able to independently verify the information. Mutual fund analysis firm Morningstar said in early December that the Janus fund, which Gross began managing in October, attracted more than $770 million in assets in November.

The sources viewed brokerage-firm client data from Albridge, a data company owned by Bank of New York Mellon Corp (BK.N), the newspaper said. It is not clear whether the money originated from one investor or one financial adviser, or from more than one, the WSJ reported.

Bill Gross left Pimco to join Janus Capital in September. As of the end of November, the fund had about $1.2 billion in assets, according to Lipper data. At the end of September, it had a scant $79 million, according to Lipper.

By the time Gross departed Pimco in September of last year, the firm's flagship Total Return fund had been hemorrhaging assets for more than a year. In the wake of his departure, the fund had outflows of $23.5 billion in that month and an additional $27.5 billion in the month that followed.

At the end of 2014, the firm reported the fund’s assets at $143.4 billion, less than half the peak of nearly $293 billion hit in 2013, according to the firm's data.

Morgan Stanley declined to comment on the story, and advisors at the firm's La Jolla, California, office did not respond to calls. Janus Funds did not respond to telephone calls or emailed requests for comment. Pimco also did not respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting By Sudarshan Varadhan, additional reporting by Luciana Lopez, Lauren La Capra and Elizabeth Dilts in New York; Editing by Don Sebastian, David Gaffen and Andre Grenon)