By Kirsten Grind

Long known as a bond powerhouse, Pacific Investment Management Co. is once again attempting an expansion into stock mutual funds.

The Newport Beach, Calif.-based company, still reeling from the departure of its star manager Bill Gross late last year, said Thursday that it is launching seven new equity strategies in partnership with the asset manager Research Affiliates.

The strategies include investments in large and small companies, as well as international and emerging-market stocks.

Executives with the firm declined to say how many mutual funds or other investment vehicles they are planning to launch under each strategy, or their growth plans.

Pimco and Research Affiliates, also based in Newport Beach, currently partner on about 13 funds globally for a total of $30 billion in assets under management. Pimco has a total of $55 billion in equity strategies under management, according to the company. Pimco had $1.8 trillion of assets under management as of Sept. 30, and is a unit of Allianz SE.

The new Pimco strategies will be based on indexes created by Research Affiliates. The firms aim to boost returns and protect from volatility by rating companies based on their size and other economic factors, rather than the price of the security. Under these strategies, the firms will invest directly in stocks rather than in derivatives, as Pimco has used in its funds with Research Affliliates in the past.

"We're responding to client needs," Pimco Chief Executive Douglas Hodge said in an interview.

Pimco has had an equity business for years. But the firm has struggled to make a name for itself in the space. In 2009, Pimco brought in Neel Kashkari, who oversaw the U.S. Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program during the financial crisis, to expand the business. But by the time Mr. Kashkari left Pimco in early 2013 to enter politics, the business had grown only marginally, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

A recent restructuring of the firm's leadership following the Sept. 26 departure of Mr. Gross also has taken aim at building out the company's stock offerings. One of Pimco's new chief investment officers, Virginie Maisonneuve, is heading up Pimco's equity push.

Pimco has faced a wave of client redemptions from its mutual funds following Mr. Gross's departure, totaling $150 billion in 2014, an industry record for annual outflows, according to fund research firm Morningstar Inc. New York City's five pension funds pulled nearly $5 billion from Pimco last year because of concerns about its management shake-up, the city's comptroller said Wednesday.

Write to Kirsten Grind at kirsten.grind@wsj.com

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