By Suzanne McGee and Davide Barbuscia
(Reuters) – Los Angeles-based asset management firms are grappling with the impact of the region’s destructive wildfires on their operations, with some relocating office space and supporting staff members who have lost their homes.
The Los Angeles area is home to large industry players like Capital Group, TCW Group and hedge funds Oaktree Capital and Ares Management. In total, firms in Los Angeles manage more than $4 trillion of the $132 trillion in global assets managed in the United States.
The blazes have reduced entire neighborhoods to smoldering ruins, leaving an apocalyptic landscape and devastating both suburbs and wealthy enclaves.
“A number of our team members have been displaced and several have lost their homes completely, my family included,” said Katie Koch, president and CEO of TCW, a firm that manages $203 billion in assets, in a letter to her Los Angeles colleagues that she reposted on LinkedIn.
TCW said all of its Los Angeles-based employees are safe and accounted for. Koch did not respond immediately to a request for comment, but a company spokesperson confirmed that her home had been lost to the fire.
Anacapa Advisors, a $60.5 million hedge fund that moved into new, larger offices in Pacific Palisades only weeks before the fires, saw that building burn to the ground as the Palisades Fire, the largest of several fires sweeping across Los Angeles County, whipped through the community, according to a spokesperson for the firm.
In a letter to the firm’s clients, Phil Pecsok, Anacapa’s founder and CIO, said all of its employees are safe and that the team successfully activated its business continuity plan.
They now are working remotely “with full access to trading platforms and risk monitoring systems.” They are placing orders for additional trading screens and communicating with each other continuously via Zoom, he said.
Pecsok did not respond immediately to a request for further comment. The spokesperson said Pecsok was working from a second home after evacuating from his primary residence.
Other asset management firms are taking precautionary steps as forecasts predict the region’s flame-fanning Santa Ana winds will persist through to Wednesday, raising the risk that fires may spread further.
Oaktree Capital, a hedge fund firm managing more than $200 billion in assets located in downtown Los Angeles, remains open for normal business operations, said Todd Molz, the firm’s chief operating officer. Many of Oaktree’s 700 employees in the area have been affected by the fires, he said.
“Our data center in Los Angeles is equipped with backup power and is available without interruption in the event of regional or localized power outages caused by the wildfires,” Molz said.
DoubleLine’s employees based in Los Angeles were working remotely this week due to the poor air quality throughout downtown, a spokesperson for the Florida-headquartered bond investment firm said.
The Milken Institute, a think tank based in Santa Monica, and Dimensional Fund Advisors, an investment firm headquartered in Texas with nearly $800 billion in assets and an office in Santa Monica, said they had switched largely to work-from-home arrangements.
The Milken Institute said it has closed its office, encouraging staffers to care for their families and work from home, while DFA said it was urging anyone who was able to do so to work remotely.
Kevin Philip, partner at Los Angeles-based Bel Air Investment Advisors, which manages more than $10 billion in assets, said he and some of his colleagues were working remotely. “COVID really set us up for managing through this and keeping our functionality going,” Philip said.
Other large asset managers are further from the immediate danger zone, such as Pimco, which is based some 40 miles (64 km) south of Los Angeles in Newport Beach. The company declined to comment.
(Reporting by Suzanne McGee in Providence and Davide Barbuscia in New York, Additional reporting by Carolina Mandl; Editing by Megan Davies and Jamie Freed)
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