Bonnie Baha, manager at bond fund DoubleLine, dies at 56

Bonnie Baha, an investment manager and top lieutenant to L.A. bond king Jeffrey Gundlach, died Sunday after being hit by a car in Virginia. She was 56.

Baha, who spent nearly two decades at downtown Los Angeles investment firm TCW, was one of many high-ranking TCW managers who left in 2010 to join Gundlach at his upstart DoubleLine Capital.

In a statement Monday, Gundlach called Baha a “trusted colleague and dear friend.”

“She was honest and direct, with a sardonic wit perfectly matching her investment skepticism,” he said.

Baha was known as a keen credit analyst who made decisive bets that paid off for her investors. For instance, she got rid of debt holdings in Wall Street firm Lehman brothers weeks before the failed investment bank unexpectedly filed for bankruptcy in 2008, according to Bloomberg News.

Baha, along with her husband Mustapha and daughter Miriam were in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend dropping off son Ayman, who is starting his first year at the University of Virginia.

The family was crossing a street near a shopping center when they were hit by a driver making a left turn. Baha’s daughter and husband suffered non-life-threatening injuries in Sunday’s collision.

Police have not indicated whether the driver was at fault or if charges will be filed.

Born Bonnie Niten in Richmond, Va., in 1959, Baha and her family moved to Orange County in the early 1960s, said her sister, Virginia Niten. Baha graduated from Pacifica High School in Garden Grove, earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from UC Irvine in 1981 and later earned an MBA from USC while working full time.

She started her career at investment bank Kidder Peabody & Co., and later worked for Standard & Poor’s and accounting firm Touche Ross, which later merged into Deloitte. When she left TCW, she was head of that firm’s corporate bond group.

Niten said her sister was hardworking and persistent, even as a teenager. When Baha was 16, she lied about her age to get a job selling tickets at Knott’s Berry Farm, Niten said. The amusement park apparently wanted anyone who handled money to be at least 18.

“But Bonnie thought, ‘I can count, I’m responsible,’” Niten said. “From the get go, she was just 200 miles an hour. Anything she did, she did it 100%. When she made up her mind she wanted to get an MBA from USC, she had to apply a couple times. Quitting was not an option.”