Fired Financier Jeffrey Gundlach Gets Revenge In High Style

On Dec. 4, 2009, the money management firm TCW fired Jeffrey Gundlach and physically removed him from its Los Angeles office. Exactly three years later, the Wall Street savant returned to the skyscraper to inflict the most glorious revenge, reports DealBreaker: a self-celebration of his enormously successful mutual fund, staffed by dozens of poached TCW employees.

The ousting of Gundlach was a sensational scandal, even by Wall Street standards. Gundlach, the "bond king," had just been named a finalist for Morningstar's award for bond fund manager of the decade when TCW gave him the boot after almost a quarter century of service.

TCW execs weren't too pleased with Gundlach's idea to start his own firm, and accused Grundlach of corporate espionage, as well as keeping a stash of pornography, "sexual devices" and marijuana in his office. Gundlach, they added, was "unstable" and arrogantly referred to himself as "the Pope" and "the Godfather."

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Gundlach does indeed have a wicked streak. He hired away a group of TCW employees and founded his own company, DoubleLine Capital, which became the fastest-growing mutual fund startup in history. He battled TCW in court, resulting in an undisclosed settlement. And on the third anniversary of his departure he decided that success was the best revenge, particularly if you gaudily rejoice in that success right next to the guys who fired you.

Gundlach invited all DoubeLine employees to a restaurant in TCW's building, where the champagne flowed under the banner, "DoubleLine $50 Billion" -- referring to the amount of money the firm has raised.

The festivities went on for seven hours, as TCW employees stared on, reports New York magazine, a brave few entering to shake hands with old colleagues. There was no mistaking that this was the work of a very rich and very vengeful man: a piece of evidence from the trial hung out front, showing the photos of the top TCW executives whom Gundlach claimed conspired to oust him in an attempt to steal his dizzyingly large fees.

One of Gundlach's employees in fact emailed several of the execs in the poster, a source told New York magazine, saying "He couldn't have done it without you."

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