By Jennifer Ablan
NEW YORK (Reuters) - One of the most popular actively managed ETFs, the Pimco Total Return Active Exchange-Traded Fund, posted cash withdrawals of $42.5 million in May, leaving assets under management at $2.57 billion, Morningstar said on Wednesday.
The outflows for the fund, known as BOND, bring total cash withdrawals to $91 million year-to-date, Morningstar data show.
Assets under management by the fund, an actively managed intermediate-term ETF intended to mimic the strategy of Pimco's flagship mutual fund and once run by Pimco co-founder Bill Gross, are down by roughly half from a peak of $5.2 billion reached in April 2013.
By comparison, the actively managed SPDR DoubleLine Total Return Tactical ETF, known as TOTL and which competes directly with BOND, has attracted $616 million year-to-date with assets now at $2.43 billion, making it the second-largest actively managed intermediate-term bond ETF, Morningstar said. The fund, which posted inflows of $109 million last month, is led by Jeffrey Gundlach, Philip Barach and Jeffrey Sherman.
"TOTL has been the better performer in 2016 of the duo of actively managed ETFs and the one with a long-tenured management team," said Todd Rosenbluth, director of ETF and mutual fund research at S&P Global Market Intelligence. "Investors are familiar with both firms' active bond products, but the ETFs are following the same trend of their mutual fund siblings. Pimco's recent mutual fund flows problems have spilled over into the ETF market this year."
Rosenbluth said DoubleLine is benefiting from a large distribution partner in State Street Global Advisors "that has well-established ETF relationships with institutional investors and wirehouse firms."
A spokeswoman for Pimco declined to comment.
The actively managed Fidelity Total Bond ETF as well as the passively managed funds Barclays (LON:BARC) Aggregate index-tracking iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond, Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF and the Schwab U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF have been enjoying net inflows so far in 2016, Morningstar data show.