Income-hungry investors flock to PIMCO’s fixed-income closed-end funds for multiple reasons, including the big yields (often in excess of 9.0%), monthly payments, and sometimes even the ridiculously low prices (as we wrote about here and here). And while some investors are reassured by PIMCO’s track record of no distribution cuts in several of their most popular funds (for example (PDI), (PCI) and (PKO)), there is a lot more going on under the hood, and the recently proposed merger between these funds could be a little window dressing by the firm as the track of no distribution cuts may be in jeopardy. In this report, we pull back the curtains on these funds to reveal a little bit about how the sausage is made, and then conclude with our opinion on whether they still make for good investments, or if it is time to move on to new opportunities.