NEW YORK (Reuters) - TCW Group Inc, one of the largest money managers in the world, fired Chief Investment Officer Jeffrey Gundlach and removed him from its board of directors after buying a smaller rival last week.
Los Angeles-based TCW said Gundlach was "relieved of his duties" and replaced as head of TCW's high-grade fixed income group by Tad Rivelle. Rivelle is the co-founder of Metropolitan West Asset Management LLC, a firm overseeing $30 billion in assets that TCW recently acquired.
In a letter obtained by Reuters on Sunday, TCW said Gundlach "threatened to take certain actions that could have jeopardized the firm's ability to manage clients' fixed income assets."
TCW, which oversees about $110 billion in assets, said it "deeply regrets the need to take this action" in the letter dated December 4 and signed by TCW's Chief Executive Officer Marc Stern.
Last week, TCW announced it would buy MetWest and said the transaction was expected to close in the first quarter of 2010. Financial terms were not disclosed in the release sent Friday.
MetWest has 115 employees and was founded in 1996.
TCW spokeswoman Erin Freeman declined to comment further. Calls to Gundlach were not immediately returned.
(Reporting by Jennifer Ablan; additional reporting by Deepa Seetharaman, editing by Maureen Bavdek)
