One of the most valuable short term PR campaigns?

Measuring "success" in a public relations campaign, is often not straightforward, and particularly in the short term.

Well Bill Gross, founder of PIMCO, one of the world's largest dealers in bonds, and leading authority and commentator on bonds, has shown how to do it and tie it in with his investment strategy.

He invested heavily in mortgage bonds issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the main lenders of mortgages for the US residential market, to the tune of over $100bn according to the Financial Times. This was at a time when many in the financial community were becoming very concerned about the viability of both organisations and were selling both bonds and equity in both organisations. When the US government acted, and nationalised them, or put them into what the US Treasury called "conservatorship", it rescued the bond holders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and allowed the shareholders to take the pain, giving PIMCO a major trading gain worth $1.7bn.

As well as being a consummate dealer, Bill Gross also knows how to work the media and through his highly regarded newsletters on bonds and through media such as CNBC he has pushed the agenda, that the US government was going to need to take a more active role with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and inject more capital. Some in the blogging community have queried this apparent conflict of interest and the role of other industry figures and commentators.

It will be interesting to see whether mainstream financial media or even the regulators take a look again at Bill Gross' success and high profile role as a commentator and decide that there are potential conflicts of interest. It could be argued that Bill Gross has never hid his trading strategy and understands that in today's 24x7 global markets; transparency or advocacy of your trading position is part of the legitimacy of your trading position.

The Wall Street Journal does a summary of winners and losers over the affair and Bill Gross and his trading strategy and PR campaign are one of the clear winners from the affair.