The TCW Group has added a pair of alternative investment shops and a new head of alternative products to its Christmas stocking this year.
The firm has appointed Jess Ravich as Head of Alternative Products to spearhead the firm’s efforts to further expand its alternative investment platform. Ravich will report directly to TCW president and CEO David Lippman.
Most recently Ravich served as a managing director and head of capital markets at Houlihan, Lokey, Howard & Zukin, an international investment bank.
“Alternative products continue to be an extremely important part of our platform and as we seek to expand this offering in-house, I can think of nobody more capable than Jess to lead this effort for us,” sated Lippman.
Ravich will hit the ground running at TCW because the firm earlier this month partnered up with Scoggin Capital Management, an event-driven shop, to form TCW/Scoggin to manage distressed and event-driven alternative investment strategies. Scoggin will be responsible for the day-to-day operations and all investment decisions of TCW/Scoggin and Ravich will oversee TCW/Scoggin.
Under the agreement, Scoggin co-founders, Craig Effron and Curtis Schenker, and Scoggin’s head of distressed investments Dev Chodry will remain employees of Scoggin.
Founded in 1988, Scoggin is a global investment manager of event-driven strategies and presently advises two private investment fund complexes with assets of some $1.5 billion.
In addition, TCW has agreed to acquire the Special Situations Funds group from Regiment Capital Advisors.
The transaction is expected to close by year-end. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The SSF business has approximately $2 billion in assets and commitments under management and is overseen by Rick Miller along with six Boston- and New York-based veteran investment professionals, all of whom will join TCW and continue to manage the funds.
The SSF business will also report to Ravich.
The TCW Group was founded in 1971 and has some $135 billion in assets under management, including $47 billion in mutual funds under the MetWest and TCW Fund families.
