TCW had $1 billion net inflows into flagship fund since Friday: Morningstar

By Jennifer Ablan NEW YORK (Reuters) - TCW, an investment firm that is a major rival of Pimco, posted roughly $1 billion in net inflows into its Metropolitan West Total Return Bond Fund since Friday, according to data from Morningstar on Thursday. Last Friday Bill Gross, one of the bond market's most renowned investors, quit Pimco for distant rival Janus Capital Group Inc last Friday. He was expected to be fired the next day from the firm he helped found more than 40 years ago, a source said. TCW, which is overseen by Tad Rivelle, chief investment officer of fixed-income, ranks in the top 25 fund families and has attracted the strongest net inflows so far this year, with Vanguard at No. 1 with net inflows of $86.5 billion, according to Morningstar data. Riville had worked for Gross at Pimco. Eric Jacobson, senior analyst at Morningstar, said the huge inflows since Friday "makes me wonder if it was a few big accounts or maybe some allocators who have been thinking about jumping and just decided when Bill bailed." Long-time rivals including Los Angeles-based TCW and Jeffrey Gundlach's DoubleLine are among the biggest beneficiaries of client money fleeing the Newport Beach, California-based Pimco. DoubleLine, also based in Los Angeles, said on Wednesday its flagship DoubleLine Total Return Bond Fund ended September with net inflows of $1.32 billion, compared with $562 million in August. That brought the fund's net inflow to $3.79 billion so far this year. (Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jeffrey Benkoe)