TCW fund assets double to $40B since Gundlach's departure

TCW Group Inc. has doubled its mutual-fund assets since the end of 2009, when the money manager was reeling from client defections in the wake of the ouster of Chief Investment Officer Jeffrey Gundlach. TCW and its Metropolitan West Asset Management unit attracted $4.6 billion in net deposits this year, bringing total fund assets to $40 billion, according to Peter Viles, a spokesman for the Los Angeles-based firm. TCW and Metropolitan West managed $19.8 billion in funds at the end of 2009. “The growth represents the intersection of strong investment performance and a well-developed distribution network,” Chuck Baldiswieler, head of retail sales, said in a telephone interview from New York. The increase in deposits is coming from clients at large brokerage firms, registered investment advisers and through retirement platforms, Baldiswieler said. Investors pulled about $25 billion from TCW after the firing of Gundlach, almost a fourth of the firm's $110 billion in fund and separate account assets prior to the investment chief's departure. The firm now oversees $128 billion, including assets at Metropolitan West, whose acquisition was announced on Dec. 4, 2009, the same day Gundlach was dismissed. TCW said it fired Gundlach because he had plotted with colleagues to steal the company's trade secrets and start his own firm. Gundlach said TCW dismissed him to avoid having to pay him. More than 40 members of Gundlach's team initially followed him to his new investment firm, Los Angeles-based DoubleLine Capital LP, which has $35 billion in assets under management. Fund Returns DoubleLine Total Return Bond Fund, which opened in April 2010, has almost $27 billion in assets and returned 4.3 percent this year, ahead of 96 percent of peers that focus on mortgage- backed securities, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. TCW, a unit of Paris-based Societe Generale SA, added 115 professionals with the MetWest acquisition. Metropolitan West Total Return Bond Fund, which buys government and corporate debt, attracted the most money among TCW and MetWest funds this year, with $2.2 billion in net deposits. TCW Emerging Markets Income Fund is second, with $930 million. Metropolitan Total Return, which has $20.6 billion in assets, returned 4.5 percent this year, ahead of 96 percent of similarly managed funds, Bloomberg data show. The $3.8 billion Emerging Markets Income Fund returned almost 7 percent, beating 94 percent of peers. --Bloomberg News--