TCW Ouster
Marks, in December 2014, said Wall Street analysts “penuriously” estimated the value of the DoubleLine stake at $350 million to $400 million. Oaktree spokeswoman Andrea Williams declined to offer a current estimate.
DoubleLine declined to comment, according to analyst Loren Fleckenstein.
Gundlach was ousted as chief investment officer of Los Angeles-based TCW in December 2009 after a dispute with management that led to a legal tussle. The week after his dismissal, he reached out to Oaktree for help setting up his new firm, according to an account provided by Oaktree Vice Chairman John Frank at a June 2013 investment conference.
Marks and Gundlach worked at TCW during the 1980s and ’90s, with Gundlach reporting to Marks before the senior manager left to form Oaktree. Bruce Karsh, an Oaktree co-founder, and Philip Barach, DoubleLine’s co-founder, have known each other for 30 years.
Informative Lunches
Oaktree helped Gundlach’s business acquire office space and set up accounting and trading systems, Frank said at the 2013 conference. The two companies are headquartered in the same building in downtown Los Angeles.
The relationship is more than financial.
“We have lunch periodically,” Marks said in December at a conference sponsored by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. “We bring each other up-to-date on the market -- which means mostly that Jeffrey tells us what’s going to happen, which we’re very eager to know.”
Marks has called the DoubleLine venture a “great investment” but expressed one regret about the original transaction. At a 2014 Goldman Sachs conference, he said, “We should have bought more.”