Pac Life Adds Tea Leaves to Brew in Newport Center

Not much math but plenty of tea leaves to read on the Pimco-Janus front. The latest development involves Pimco progenitor Pac Life—the insurance outfit that’s just a few doors down Newport Center Drive from Pimco’s HQ as well as the new office Bill Gross has set up under the Janus Capital banner. Seems Pac Life has requested the SEC’s permission to move some accounts from the Pimco Global Multi-Asset Managed Allocation Portfolio to the Janus Aspen Series Balanced Portfolio. Gross isn’t named as a former or current manager of either—as though that will keep the chattering class in check … Another wrinkle for the chattering class to chew over: former Gross protégé Mohamed El-Erian has joined Costa Mesa-based startup Payoff Inc. as an investor and board member (see Addendum item, page 22) … A lot of schools talk about their strengths in the arts and sciences. Faces in the crowd at the latest edition of Sage Hill School’s ongoing Science Lecture Series did the talking for the Newport Coast campus, where Segerstrom Center for the Arts President Terry Dwyer was spotted a few seats away from Peter Donovan, director of the Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center at UCI, during the Oct. 23 talk in the Argyros Family Lecture Hall … Credit Sage Hill with setting its bar high—the subject of the lecture was Cell Biology: The Age of Mighty Mitochondria. Dr. Susanne Rafelski, who leads a team of 10 researchers at the Center for Complex Biological Systems at UCI, headlined the talk on behalf of a couple of lab teammates: Mariella Simon, a Childrens’ Hospital of Orange County staff scientist and Ph.D. candidate; and Sage Hill senior Claire Goul … Goul might sound young for the role, but she’s already been in the lab for two years, with a stint at the Koch Institute for Cancer Research at MIT under her belt. Goul brings a strong academic bloodline to the challenge, too—she’s the granddaughter of Ed Thorp, who started out as an MIT prof before becoming better known as a card counter, hedge funder and “King of the Quants”… Speaking of the Segerstrom Center: It’s beginning to look a lot like Navidad over in that neck of South Coast Metro. The Segerstrom has two top-shelf mariachi shows in store for the holiday season, starting with a Nov. 29 appearance by Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán, a group that continues “to define the sound of modern mariachi while remaining firmly rooted in the rich traditions of Mexican folk music.” A Dec. 23 show by Grammy-winning Mariachi Los Camperos de Nati Cano is expected to go on despite the recent passing of founder Nati Cano, an institution in music circles … Author, author: A couple of additions to OC’s literary landscape: Former Business Journal reporter and current Bloomberg staffer Peter J. Brennan is out with The C Route to Practical Financial Advice, billed as an 8-step guide to building wealth in the 21st century. Then there’s Falling Into Theatre…and Finding Myself—the latest from Dr. Robert Cohen, renowned Claire Trevor Professor at UCI’s Department of Drama. He’s the founding chair of the drama department, and has other books on acting technique and theory to his credit. Falling Into Theatre departs from his prior offerings with “personal, revelatory and often amusing” stories about UCI’s early years.