TCW opens Milan branch

US asset manager TCW has opened a new office in Milan expanding its presence in Italy, a penetration that began at the end of 2015.
Matteo Sinigaglia, who joined the company in September as senior vice president, will operate from the new office reporting directly to Gian Luca Giurlani, managing director and head of the Ucits platform in Europe and the development of the Southern European market.
Sinigaglia will be responsible for supporting the distribution of TCW’s active strategies in Ucits format to funds of funds, Unit Linked and distribution networks.
TCW’s hire joins from Banca di Bologna, where he worked for more than 13 years to become senior vice president of Product Management, focused on asset management and the insurance sector. He also worked in Banca BNL Investimenti and Allianz Group.
Gian Luca Giurlani said: “We believe in the potential of the Italian market and the opening of the local branch demonstrates this. “We are pleased to welcome Matteo who, thanks to his solid experience in close contact with the world of distribution, will be able to support our development in a very competitive market. The strong interest already seen for our approach to active management has led us to ‘invest’ even more in the Italian market, where we are planning to expand the offering of investment strategies in the near future”.
TCW, with more than 40 years of investment experience and around $200bn in assets under management, first was dedicated exclusively in institutional investors. Later it expanded its services introducing wealth management and unit linked activities, and then signed two important distribution agreements with CheBanca! and Finecobank.
According to TCW, some of its investment solutions that have attracted most interest in Europe to date are several of UCITS sub-funds including the MetWest Total Return Bond Fund, the European counterpart to the US strategy of approximately $80bn under management, the MetWest Unconstrained Bond Fund and the two emerging market fixed income instruments in local currency and hard currency (TCW Emerging Markets Income Fund, TCW Emerging Markets Local Currency Income).