DoubleLine's Jeff Gundlach plans new global bond fund

DoubleLine Capital's Jeffrey E. Gundlach plans to start a new global bond fund, according to a filing that regulators received on Wednesday, extending the star fixed income manager's reach in foreign markets. The DoubleLine Global Bond Fund will invest in government bonds and other related debt securities, including those issued by the U.S. and the world's other major economic powerhouses. The fund will invest based on the manager's “view of changing global macroeconomic conditions such as, but not limited to, broad dollar trends, commodity cycles, cross border trade and portfolio flows, and relative growth and inflation differentials,” according to a prospectus. Mr. Gundlach's efforts are backed by teams focused on emerging-markets debt and developed-market securities. Those teams are led by Luz Padilla and Bonnie Baha, respectively. Like many DoubleLine employees, they were drawn from the TCW Group Inc. after Mr. Gundlach's acrimonious 2009 split with that firm. The DoubleLine Total Return Bond Fund, which Mr. Gundlach runs with Philip A. Barach, took in $7.3 billion from investors this year, vaulting the firm to one of the best sales results among fund companies this year. The firm is seventh among mutual fund managers in attracting new investor money this year, according to Morningstar Inc., although the firm disputes those estimates. Institutional shares of DoubleLine's Total Return, which invests heavily in mortgage-backed securities, have risen 5.92% over the five years that ended Wednesday, according to Morningstar, putting it ahead of most competitors. The fund has managed to keep ahead of most of its competitors and a key benchmark, the Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, this year. It's unclear when the new fund will launch, but news of DoubleLine's plans came just before the policymakers in the U.S. decided against their first rate hike in nearly a decade on Thursday. Many investors anticipate that when the U.S. Federal Reserve does tighten monetary policy it could amplify the sorts of mispricing in bonds, currencies and other assets that active fund managers look to exploit.