TCW CEO Marc Stern tells the Los Angeles Times that his tenure is "going well."

That may not be false confidence. The 40-year-old asset manager's AUM base is at $109 billion, according to the hometown paper, about the same as when Stern fired Jeff Gundlach last year. Clients initially pulled about $25 billion from TCW, a figure that Stern replaced through his pickup of MetWest. Now, the firm reports that mutual fund shareholders are even contributing net new money to its Total Return bond fund.

"The merger has gone better than I ever anticipated -- and I anticipated it would go well," Stern tells his hometown paper. "We've reached a place where I am finally having fun at work again," he also says.

Meanwhile the article adds that TCW's debt-financing arm is expected to amicably split off with $11.5 billion of assets, according to Mark Attanasio, one of the principals of the debt-financing unit.

The paper also throws a sidebar to DoubleLine Capital where Jeff Gundlach could be disappointed with his new firm's growth out of the gate. The paper reports that last December Gundlach told it he expected to draw $10 billion in assets in a "short while" and as much as $50 billion by the end of this year. Yet, DoubleLine has pulled in just $3.7 billion in AUM despite TCW's clients yanking $25 billion from Gundlach's old shop. The paper suggests that most of the defectors have abandoned both asset managers.

Andrew Douglas, the investment chief for Dubuque Bank & Trust, may speak for many of the former TCW clients who failed to make the move to DoubleLine when he tells the paper that TCW's lawsuit against DoubleLine and Gundlach "gives you a little bit of a pause."

Stern replaced Robert Beyer as CEO in June 2009, prompting the schism that eventually led to the split with Gundlach. This is his second stint as a TCW top decision maker. He held the president's post from 1992 to 2005. He plans to double TCW's assets over the next four years, and he is also taking down the silos the shop has been divided into to allow greater communication.

Besides acquiring the MetWest investment team and their $30 billion in AUM to take over the former Gundlach team portfolios, Stern also persuaded parent company Societe Generale to put 7.5 percent equity that could grow to 20 percent into the hands of TCW's top portfolio managers to keep them onboard.

That stabilized the situation, he says. The paper adds that MetWest founder Tad Rivelle admits that TCW clients "were in a state of shock" when he signed on, but that "It's now about what it's always about: Are you performing?" 

Edited by: Sean Hanna, Editor in Chief


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