(Adds details about Bill Gross' retirement)
Feb 5 (Reuters) - Fund manager Janus Henderson Group JHG.N on Tuesday reported quarterly profit that missed Wall Street expectations, hit by customers withdrawing more funds against the backdrop of heightened market volatility.
The results come a day after the fund's most high-profile portfolio manager, former PIMCO chief Bill Gross, announced his retirement after making a failed attempt to reclaim his status as the bond market's most influential investor.
Gross co-founded Pacific Investment Management Co in 1971 and made it the most recognizable name in the investment world. At Janus, he was in charge of its $950 million Global Unconstrained Bond Fund.
In the quarter, Janus' net outflows nearly tripled to $8.4 billion and the company's assets under management fell 11.4 percent to $328.5 billion in the quarter.
"We faced the same global market challenges and headwinds as the wider industry, combined with an aggregate $18 billion outflow, which was disappointing," Chief Executive Officer Dick Weil said.
Financial market turmoil in the last quarter of 2018 prompted investors to pull out money from risk-sensitive assets, hurting the bottom line of fund managers around the globe.
Last week, Janus Henderson announced the closure of its three Australian equities funds due to tough fund-raising conditions, and said it would return nearly A$490 million ($354.86 million) to investors. income attributable to the company fell to $106.8 million, or 54 cents per share, in the quarter ended Dec. 31, from, $471 million, or $2.32 per share, a year earlier when the company recorded a $340.7 million tax gain.
On an adjusted basis, the company earned $114.3 million, or 59 cents per share. Analysts were expecting 63 cents per share, according to IBES data by Refinitiv.
($1 = 1.3808 Australian dollars)