L.A. money manager Oaktree Capital plans IPO
Oaktree Capital Management, one of L.A.’s largest money management firms, filed Friday to sell stock to the public.
In a registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Oaktree said it hoped to raise as much as $100 million but didn’t say how many shares would be sold.
Oaktree manages more than $80 billion in assets, an amount that has more than doubled since October 2007. The firm is one of Wall Street’s best-known investors in “distressed” securities, meaning bonds of companies that find themselves in financial trouble. Catering to pension funds and other institutional investors, Oaktree has a reputation for being patient as well as savvy and opportunistic.
Led by Howard Marks and Bruce Karsh, Oaktree also is a big player in private equity and commercial real estate and owns a minority stake in DoubleLine Capital, the bond fund start-up launched in 2009 by star manager Jeffrey Gundlach.
In 2007, Oaktree took a step toward going public by allowing its shares to be traded on a private exchange set up by Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Marks, Karsh and others founded Oaktree in 1995 when they bolted from L.A.-based Trust Co. of the West. They had been at the firm since the late 1980s, managing portfolios of junk bonds, distressed debt and other assets.
With 615 employees in 13 offices worldwide, Oaktree has kept a relatively low public profile, but Marks’ client letters chronicling the highs and lows of corporate finance and market swings are widely read on Wall Street.
Marks, 65, last month published a book, “The Most Important Thing,” based on those letters.
