Gary Black, chief investment officer and president, will succeed current Janus Capital CEO and chairman Steve Scheid effective January 3, 2006.

Black, who joined Janus in April of 2004, will retain the title of chief investment officer. Scheid will remain chairman of the board.

"We asked Steve to be Janus' CEO and he did exactly what we needed him to do: resolve regulatory issues, stabilize Janus, strengthen the management team and position the firm for growth. Now it's time for Gary to build on that foundation," said Paul Balser, Janus' leading independent director.

Another independent director, Robert Burt, has resigned from the board, citing strategy differences, report Reuters.

"He disagreed with some of the strategies we are pursuing to increase shareholder value," Scheid said during an earnings conference call.

Black will lead a new charge in the intermediary-sold and institutional channels, as outlined in the firm's third quarter earnings presentation.

Facing continued outflows in its Janus-managed products, Janus outlined a plan to shift resources from its retail direct channel to advisor and institutional channels. The changes will affect both marketing and hiring, according the presentation. On the advertising side, Janus plans to de-emphasize mass market television advertising. In hiring, the fund firm will focus on adding sales staff in the intermediary space.

The plan makes sense in light of Janus' latest earnings results.

Assets under management were $139.4 billion in the third quarter, up seven percent from the second quarter. The positive inflows were driven by Janus' institutional subsidiary INTECH, which recorded $5.1 billion in net inflows for the quarter. Flows for Janus-managed products remained negative, at $3.4 billion, a $500 million improvement over the second quarter, according to the presentation.

Janus has planned three new products for its INTECH unit -- a global product and a long-short/market neutral product launching in the first quarter of 2006, and an international product launching in the fourth quarter of next year.

In Janus' Retail channel, net outflows totaled $1.2 billion. Janus Global Advisors saw third quarter outflows of $800 million, while the Institutional channel experienced inflows of $3.7 billion.

The institutional channel accounted for 30 percent of total assets, the direct and supermarket channel for 33 percent, and the global advisors channel for 37 percent.

Third quarter earnings for the company were $0.15 per diluted share, or $0.14 per diluted share in adjusted earnings, beating analysts' expectations of $0.13. Adjusted earnings were up 27 percent compared to the previous quarter and eight percent compared to the same period last year.

Investment management revenue was $218.4 million, up approximately five percent from the second quarter and one percent from the year-ago quarter. 

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