Jennifer Grancio, formerly Chief Executive Officer of Engine No. 1, has now been named TCW’s Global Head of Wealth, after the acquisition of her business by TCW, a global asset manager with USD210 billion under management. Grancio will oversee global wealth distribution, lead TCW’s ETF business, and direct TCW’s brand and digital marketing strategy.
Engine No.1 named both for the fire station down the road from their San Francisco office, and from the engine that gets everything going, started three years ago. “I was there before we formally launched and the idea was that the market was missing focus on these huge transitions which were going to unfold for investors,” Grancio says, naming energy transformation and the phenomenon of manufacturing coming back to the US. “There was lots of value to be created and that was the genesis and the inside story on Engine No. 1.”
Engine No.1’s alternatives business continues but the USD600 million ETF platform, pointed towards wealth managers and small institutions continues, within the TCW platform.
“In terms of scaling an asset management business, you continue to have an opportunity with more distribution resources and the platform fits into the TCW strategy so it’s a great opportunity for what we had built.”
TCW for its part had a sub-advisory relationship with First Trust and SMAs and mutual funds but no ETFs.
“This opportunity is very exciting,” Grancio says. “I started at Barclays Global Investors and at BlackRock as they built iShares so have had the chance to build within a large organisation, but also from scratch.”
She comments that TCW has a strong set of strategies in bond mutual funds.
“It’s very well-known and extremely well known in public and private credit and also as an equity business. When we launch it will be active, that’s the opportunity from TCW. We are looking at total return core bond products as well as their capabilities in investment grade CLO.
“In the equity space, TCW has a core equity product based on core relative value and more growth-oriented opportunities such as AI strategies, focusing on systems that are under-represented in portfolios, such as energy, materials and supply chain products.
“We haven’t disclosed yet which ones will be ETFs but as we work through it, it’s a very exciting opportunity given the strengths to deploy some of these strategies and be clear on what we have, build our relationships with clients around the world and take advantage of the ETF wrapper – it’s a terrific market for active management.”
