Several workers at Los Angeles-based asset management firms, which in total oversee more than $4 trillion, are scrambling to find new homes — and some of the businesses are seeking new headquarters — after the California wildfires destroyed their properties.
Anacapa Advisors, a $60.5 million hedge fund, moved into a new four-story office building in the Pacific Palisades just four days before it burned down, according to Anacapa founder and chief investment officer Phil Pecsok.
Pecsok told The Post he left the office last Tuesday when the fires began and went straight to his nearby home — where he fought the flames on his own for nearly eight hours.
His home survived.
However, Jordan Moore, the firm’s operations manager, lost her home and all of her belongings, he said.
All of the firm’s employees are safe and the company successfully activated a detailed business continuity plan that they had put together in case there was an earthquake, Pecsok said.
Anacapa is looking to sublease new offices in Santa Monica or Brentwood. In the meantime, staffers are working remotely while the firm places orders for additional trading screens, Pecsok added.
“Honestly, the fund continues to go along without a hitch even though our lives are completely changed forever,” Pecsok told The Post in a statement.
TCW, a firm that manages $203 billion in assets, said its LA-based staffers are safe and accounted for, and that its headquarters remain fully operational.
“A number of our team members have been displaced and several have lost their homes completely, my family included,” said Katie Koch, president and CEO of TCW, in a letter to her LA colleagues that she posted on LinkedIn.
A Capital Group spokesperson told The Post its headquarters were not impacted and that its employees are safe, though they were unsure how many employees lost their homes or were impacted by the fires. The firm had more than $2.7 trillion in assets under management as of June 2024, according to its website.
Oaktree Capital, which manages more than $200 billion in assets, remains open for normal business operations, according to Todd Molz, the hedge fund’s chief operating officer. Oaktree’s headquarters are located in downtown Los Angeles.
But many of Oaktree’s 700 staffers have been affected by the fires, Molz told The Post in a statement.
The firm’s LA data center has backup power and is available without interruption in the event of local power outages, he added.
DoubleLine, which is based in Florida, said its LA employees have been working remotely this week because of the poor air quality from the fires.
The Milken Institute, a Santa Monica-based think tank, and Dimensional Fund Advisors, a Texas-based investment firm with an office in Santa Monica, said they were urging staffers to work from home.
Kevin Philip, partner at Bel Air Investment Advisors, which manages more than $10 billion in assets, said he and some of his colleagues were working remotely this week.
“COVID really set us up for managing through this and keeping our functionality going,” Philip said.
While experiences during the pandemic likely helped money managers pivot to remote work, the damages from the fires were unprecedented and will take a long time to clean up.
AccuWeather last week raised its estimate for damages from the LA fires to between $135 billion and $150 billion – triple the costs initially expected – after blazes ripped through some of Los Angeles County’s neighborhoods.
JPMorgan analysts predicted insured losses of $20 billion – and estimated that uninsured losses could soar to well over $100 billion. That would make the LA fires the most expensive in US history – equal to nearly 4% of California’s annual GDP.
With Post wires
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