Legendary bond investor Bill Gross is leaving the firm he founded, PIMCO, to join Denver’s Janus Capital Group Inc.

Gross will remain in Newport Beach, Ca. where he will establish a new Janus office, and will lead the firm’s efforts to build its business in global macro fixed income strategies. This effort will remain separate from Janus’ existing credit-based fixed income platform. Initially, he will manage the Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund and related strategies, and will join the firm’s team that focuses on global asset allocation.

“I look forward to returning my full focus to the fixed income markets and investing, giving up many of the complexities that go with managing a large, complicated organization,” said Gross. “I chose Janus as my next home because of my long standing relationship with and respect for CEO Dick Weil and my desire to get back to spending the bulk of my day managing client assets.”

“Bill Gross has an exemplary track record with decades of success and he will offer an exceptional approach to navigating today’s increasingly risky markets with a focus on macro, unconstrained strategies. His involvement provides Janus a unique opportunity to offer strategies and products that are highly complementary to those already managed by our credit-based fixed income team,” said Richard Weil, CEO of Janus Capital.

As of June 30, Janus managed approximately US$177.7 billion. PIMCO, which has almost US$2 trillion in assets under management, has yet to comment on the move.

PIMCO says that it has a succession plan in place, and that it will soon name both a new chief investment officer, and portfolio managers to take over Gross’ assignments. “While we are grateful for everything Bill contributed to building our firm and delivering value to PIMCO’s clients, over the course of this year it became increasingly clear that the firm’s leadership and Bill have fundamental differences about how to take PIMCO forward,” said the firm’s CEO, Douglas Hodge. “PIMCO has been developing a succession plan for some time to ensure that the firm is well prepared to manage a seamless leadership transition in its portfolio management team.”

“We have built a deep bench of talent with extensive investment and leadership experience, including more than 240 portfolio managers globally, and our outstanding team around the world gives us the scale, talent, expertise and commitment to manage this transition. We will continue to add and promote talent at all levels to help us drive our firm forward,” added Hodge.