Janus Adds Funds as Managers and Investors Head for the Exits

Richard Weil is learning how difficult it is to revive a mutual fund brand that has fallen from grace. Weil is chief executive officer of Janus Capital Group, a Denver-based money manager that rocketed to national prominence with the technology boom of the 1990s. After that came the dot-com crash, followed by a decade of internal turmoil, an exodus of talent, and the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. “They came out of total obscurity in the mid-’90s,” says Burton Greenwald, a fund industry consultant. “They had an extraordinary equity run, and then it all fell apart.”

Weil, a former chief operating officer at Pimco, took charge in February 2010 and has drawn praise from Wall Street analysts, especially for his efforts to diversify the company’s fund offerings. Still, he hasn’t been able to fix the biggest problem: Janus’s clients keep heading for the exits. He declined to comment for this story.