If you have a 401k or other similar retirement account, it is likely that your investment options include mutual funds from any of several mutual fund managers. The largest managers include Fidelity, Vanguard, American Funds/Capital Group, and others. A somewhat smaller player is Janus Henderson Funds. Janus is a survivor and you should feel safe with your money if you opt to allocate some of your retirement account to a fund within the Janus Henderson family of funds.

High-Tech Heyday

Janus was founded in Denver in 1969 (according to its website) and made a name for itself particularly during the “dot com” bubble era of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The Janus Twenty Fund became one of the hottest funds of the era, rising from about $27 in early 1997 to over $90 in March 2000 before doing a u-turn as its portfolio companies tanked (per Yahoo Finance). Janus’ fortunes sagged as the tech sector struggled to recover, yet they continued to grow and round out the stable of funds, and they eventually made it out the other end. Denver’s Janus merged with London’s Henderson in 2017, thereby boosting their combined offerings as well as their capital base.

Today

Go to the Janus Henderson website and you can see the array of products that they have. While not as broad and large as Fidelity, Janus Henderson retains its reputation as a good manager of equities and particularly of tech stocks. While they do offer ETF’s, Janus Henderson is primarily a mutual fund shop. The Twenty Fund was combined into the Forty Fund, which survives today with $13.5 Billion of assets and is the flagship of the company. Its managers, Doug Rao and Nick Schommer, were recently profiled in Investors Business Daily and emphasized their desire to invest in companies with “wide moats”, or well-protected markets and/or high barriers to entry. This sounds a lot like Warren Buffet’s methodology.

IMO

I admire Janus Henderson because it has adapted and survived. Janus could have tanked along with many of the hotshot companies of 20 years ago, but it successfully navigated through the minefield. Janus gained more stability through its merger with Henderson. If you have the opportunity to invest part of your retirement account with the Janus Forty or any of the Janus Henderson family of funds, I believe that your investment will be in good hands.