We introduce the Pan-Pacific Planet Search , a survey of 170 metal-rich Southern hemisphere subgiants using the 3.9m Anglo-Australian Telescope .
We report the first discovery from this program , a giant planet orbiting 7 CMa ( HD 47205 ) with a period of 763 \pm 17 days , eccentricity e = 0.14 \pm 0.06 , and m sin i =2.6 \pm 0.6 M _ { Jup } .
The host star is a K giant with a mass of 1.5 \pm 0.3 M _ { \odot } and metallicity [ Fe/H ] =0.21 \pm 0.10 .
The mass and period of 7 CMa b are typical of planets which have been found to orbit intermediate-mass stars ( M _ { * } > 1.3 M _ { \odot } ) . Hipparcos photometry shows this star to be stable to 0.0004 mag on the radial-velocity period , giving confidence that this signal can be attributed to reflex motion caused by an orbiting planet .