Pimco bond titans buy into GWS Giants

They’re in charge of hundreds of billions of dollars, and they’ve backing GWS in a big way.

Pimco's group chief investment officer Dan Ivascyn will be at the MCG tomorrow to cheer on the GWS Giants (left).

Meet the mystery American bond traders who are in charge of hundreds of billions of investor dollars globally, but have quietly been putting their own millions into the GWS Giants.

Market gurus and Pimco executives Dan Ivascyn, the Boston-born “bond prince”, and New York-based Marc Seidner will both be in Australia by Saturday morning in time to see the Giants clash with Richmond in the AFL grand final at the MCG.

The sports-loving pair maintain an extremely low profile when it comes to their passion for Australian rules football, but are understood to have also backed the Giants financially and become an integral part of the club’s off-field operations.

That has extended to having close relationships with Giants president Tony Shepherd and chief executive Dave Matthews, and coach Leon Cameron. They are also, accordingly to one AFL insider, a “significant” part of the group of anonymous corporate supporters who have stumped up $2.5m annually to buy naming rights for the club’s home ground, known as Giants Stadium since the beginning of the year.

Tony Shepherd and TV presenter Mel Doyle at Giants Stadium Picture: James Gourley

“It is important to say what they are doing is sports philanthropy and is on their own and not with their company’s brand attached to it,” GWS president Tony Shepherd told The Aus­tralian.

“They have fallen in the love with the game, and with the team, and we are blessed to have these sort of people involved with the Giants. They came to us, it was not a matter of us approaching them. They certainly don’t want any publicity. But they have very quickly become experts in the game.”

Mr Ivascyn is Pimco’s group chief investment officer and a managing director of the firm’s Newport Beach office in Los Angeles, and has arrived in Melbourne ahead of Saturday’s match.

He manages Pimco’s Income Fund, which reportedly has more than $300bn in funds. A highly ­diversified yet defensively positioned fund, it has been attractive to investors shifting back to the bond product due to interest rate cuts and monetary easing policies by central banks around the world.

He would not comment on the record when approached by The Australian. Sources say he is a keen sports fan of teams in his home town of Boston as well as well-known world teams such as the Brazilian national soccer team.

Mr Ivascyn has been to several AFL grand finals in recent years — he was said to have been travelling to Melbourne regardless of whether GWS won through to the season decider — and will be at Saturday’s game with colleague Mr Seidner, the chief investment officer of Pimco’s “non-traditional” strategies and head of portfolio management in the firm’s New York office.

The pair are understood to have been introduced to the ­Giants by Pimco’s Australian boss, Robert Mead, and another of the club’s corporate supporters in Michael Hope of the Hope ­Estate winery in the Hunter Valley, NSW.

Mr Mead and Mr Hope, an enthusiastic corporate supporter of the Giants, had previously met at a corporate function at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne and hit it off when talking about the AFL.

That led to Mr Mead inviting Pimco’s American executives to a recent AFL grand final and then later forming a relationship with Giants management.

The American pair are now said to visit Australia and the Giants up to five or six times a year, and also attended at least one Giants final this season.

“They have a good knowledge of the Giants business plan and, like anything they do, the money is not going there without them knowing what is being done with it,” one league insider told The Australian. “In particular, they like the ­Giants story about making connections with the community and how they’ve started from scratch and are building from there. It is similar to an entrepreneurial story they can relate to in that way.”

Mr Ivascyn and Mr Seidner are also members of the Giants’ exclusive coterie supporter group, M7, led by president Mr Shepherd and also including business identities such as pub baron Joel Fisher of Balmoral Hospitality Group, Chris Larsen of Ironbark Asset Management and Giants director Adrian Fonseca.

Other M7 members include Mr Hope, Efex Group founder Nick Sheehan, corporate lawyer Rob Kardos of Kardos Scanlan and importer and manufacturer Michael Pilkington.