Pimco, formally Pacific Investment Management Co. is among the largest firms in its industry. Under recently departed founder Bill Gross, the company grew from startup to Goliath, specializing in fixed-income securities. In other words, bonds; consisting of debt from national governments, municipal governments, and the occasional corporation. Pimco develops funds that invest in those bonds. (Although not exclusively. The firm also owns billions of dollars worth of REITs, which are mostly equity.) Then Pimco sells those funds to investors. Nothing could be simpler, right?

Not quite.

First, it’s hard to comprehend how colossally, massively, stupendously big Pimco is. The firm has $1.97 trillion under management, which is about 50% larger than the entire gross continental product of Africa. It’s so much money that when Gross resigned in late September 2014 to join Janus Capital Group, Inc. (JNS ), the $10 billion that investors withdrew from Pimco funds the following day barely moved the needle. Even if the most pessimistic analysts’ predictions come true and Pimco investors continue to cash out, it would still take billions upon billions more in withdrawals to make a noticeable difference. (For more, see: What to Expect from Pimco After Bill Gross .)

Performance Matters Most

Since its 1971 founding, what’s made Pimco different has been either uncommonly talented management, or performance that indicated uncommonly talented management. (The two aren’t necessarily the same.) The firm’s most successful fund has consistently beaten the bond market, albeit by barely a point a year before expenses. That’s still enough to keep fundholders happy, and the people tasked with crafting those funds consistently rich. Investors who place money under Pimco stewardship are paying for expertise, rather than going with a simple index fund that has lower expense ratios but runs on autopilot. (For related reading, see: Want a Career in Asset Management? Read This First .)

Although Pimco maintains dozens of funds, its flagship is the Total Return Bond Fund. With assets in excess of $200 billion, the Total Return Fund is one of the two largest in the world and the one that shot Pimco to prominence. Ostensibly, the Total Return Fund invests in “intermediate-term, investment-grade” bonds, which sounds nice and conservative on the surface. But a fund as gigantic as the Total Return Fund didn’t get as big as it is by putting all its money in 5-year treasury notes. The securities in the Total Return Fund are eclectic, and even include such exotic species as Asian credit default swaps. (For more, see: Alternatives to Pimco’s Total Return Fund .)

Funds of All Sizes and Shapes

Pimco’s remaining funds cover multiple categories. Some of those funds are defined by their components — domestic equity, global bond, municipal bonds, etc. Others are named after their objective (e.g. income, retirement income). Still others (core, asset allocation global, retirement solutions) are even more specialized. The firm’s funds range in magnitude from Total Return Bond Fund-size to relatively minuscule. Among the smallest Pimco funds is the California Municipal Bond Fund, with just $7.9 million in assets.

The Upside of ‘Boring’

Since elite fund managers are notoriously well-compensated, and the commodity that their business deals in is money itself, it’s tempting to think of investment management companies’ clients as the ultra-wealthy. But in reality, Pimco’s (and almost all its competitors’) biggest clients are institutional. Far from being risk-taking entrepreneurs who risked it all to build enormous personal fortunes, the majority of people who stash money with Pimco are the very grey-suited dull retirement specialists your mother wanted you to become.

That’s only slight hyperbole. A pension plan administrator was recently quoted in Financial Times as saying “I want my bond managers to be boring.” By extension, most people in the game – retirement plan administrators and retirees alike – want retirement to be as uneventful as possible. No sane investment specialist at a large institution, let alone an individual investor, is going to deposit money earmarked for retirement into a volatile fund that could sustain heavy losses. Thus the attraction to Pimco and its long record of above-average returns. (For more, see: Pension Plans: Pain or Pleasure? )

Can’t Win Them All?

While Pimco isn’t banking on speculative investments, the firm’s four-decade run of success has indeed decelerated. In fact, since 2010 the Total Return Fund has failed to keep pace with the index it was formulated to beat. That might be the fault of suddenly inferior management, but is probably just the result of chance. The problem is that if it’s indeed the latter that’s responsible for the Total Return Fund’s recent performance, then we ought to also be able to attribute the fund’s preceding years of returns to luck. In other words, the idea of genius Pimco managers having the aptitude to consistently outperform the market might be a myth. (For more, see: Pimco Customer? Consider This Before Bailing .)

That doesn’t mean that Pimco is headed for the ash heap. Reports of Pimco’s demise in the wake of Gross’s exit are, like almost all financial news, blown light-years out of proportion. The firm still offers so many funds in so many classes that there’s something for almost every investor. Like its Income Fund, two-thirds of which is in bonds maturing in the intermediate term, and the lion’s share of that in mortgages. Or its All Asset Fund, which is a fund of other Pimco funds and ETFs, invested heavily in global debt and equity issues. The former fund holds $38 billion, has consistently doubled or even tripled the performance of the U.S. aggregate index, and boasts a competitive 0.55% expense ratio. (For more, see: Fund Firm Jolts: Pimco’s Isn’t the First or Worst .)

The Bottom Line

Analyzing and ranking all of Pimco’s many and varied funds is a full-time job. Literally. Which is why investment managers across the country have made it theirs. Despite the firm’s recent internal shakeups, and the unpredictability of a new management team (although the Income Fund’s longtime manager, Dan Ivascyn, is the company lifer chosen to replace Gross), Pimco will continue to be among the very small number of firms whom investment managers unhesitatingly entrust their clients’ money to. (For more, see: The Evolution of Money Management .)

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