Janus' flagship offering, the Janus Fund, turned 40 Friday last week. The fund, which opened with $500,000 in assets and 30 shareholders, now counts $8.6 billion of assets and more than 700,000 shareholders.

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Company Press Release

DENVER - (Business Wire) Janus Capital Group, Inc. (Janus) today announced the 40th anniversary of its flagship Janus Fund (JANSX). The fund has more than doubled the return of the S&P 500 index since its inception. Ten thousand dollars invested in Janus Fund at its February 5, 1970 inception would be worth more than $1 million dollars today.

Janus Fund opened with $500,000 in assets and 30 shareholders. Forty years later the Fund has $8.6 billion in assets with more than 700,000 shareholders, and of the 890 large cap growth funds currently ranked by Lipper, Janus Fund is one of only 19 in existence with a track record of forty years.

At a time when most asset managers were located in New York and Boston, Thomas Bailey established Janus in Denver believing that doing independent, fundamental, in-depth research would provide a different perspective from the research work being done by Wall Street. In the decades following, Janus was one of the first asset managers to take this distinct research-driven, bottom-up approach to investing and leverage it across other asset classes, including global, international and fixed income strategies.

“Our mission was pretty simple: we wanted to find the most promising opportunities for our investors, and we wanted to do so in a way that added value above and beyond the confines of Wall Street,” said Bailey. “To do that, you had to put your feet on the street and do your own first-hand research. Not only did you have to talk to management, you had to dig into what they were saying by talking to suppliers, vendors, customers and competitors. Janus was unique in doing this research forty years ago, and it is still at the core of the firm’s success today.”

Co-chief investment officer Jonathan Coleman, who co-manages Janus Fund with Daniel Riff, believes the firm’s, and in particular the Janus Fund’s, solid performance over the last forty years can be attributed to Janus’ unwavering commitment to doing its own fundamental, hands-on research and the strength of the firm’s investment talent over the past four decades.

"I have worked with incredibly talented investment professionals during my 16 years at Janus and the common thread that ties us together is an unrelenting passion to gain unique investment insights," said Coleman. "I believe the strong relative long-term performance across Janus-managed funds versus their peers is a true testament to our people, our research philosophy and our process. We’re confident this strong foundation will help us deliver for investors for the next 40 years."

About Janus Capital Group Inc.

Janus Capital Group Inc. (JCG) is a global investment firm offering strategies from three individual investment boutiques: Janus Capital Management LLC (Janus), INTECH Investment Management LLC (INTECH) and Perkins Investment Management LLC (Perkins). Each manager employs a research-intensive approach that is distinct within its respective asset class. This multi-boutique approach enables the firm to provide style-specific expertise across an array of strategies, including growth, value and risk-managed equities, fixed income and alternatives through one common distribution platform.

At the end of December 2009, JCG managed $159.7 billion in assets for shareholders, clients and institutions around the globe. Based in Denver, JCG also has offices in London, Milan, Munich, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Melbourne.  

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