Ex-TCW manager Gundlach fires back after lawsuit

TCW's lawsuit will be handled as a business dispute in the ordinary course and will not distract Gundlach from expanding his new firm, DoubleLine Capital LP, Gundlach said in a letter to clients that was obtained by Reuters.

While I am resolved not to let TCW distract me or my team, TCW has disseminated certain smears and innuendoes that I am unwilling to let pass, Gundlach wrote in the letter.

In the letter, Gundlach did not deny TCW's allegations that marijuana and pornography were found in his former offices. Instead, he accused TCW of invading his privacy and revealing vestiges of closed chapters of my life.

In the lawsuit filed in California Superior Court, TCW, a unit of French Bank Societe Generale , accused Gundlach of stealing confidential data, lying to potential clients and keeping drugs and pornographic materials in his office.

Los Angeles-based TCW fired Gundlach on December 4, saying he had threatened to take actions that would have jeopardized the firm's ability to manage clients' assets.

In his letter, Gundlach defended his actions to plan for possibly leaving TCW before he was fired. He noted that SocGen had announced plans in January 2009 possibly to divest its money management businesses including TCW.

Gundlach said he had explored avenues to purchase the business, overtures that were rebuffed.

Gundlach wrote that he also fully expected up until my dismissal on December 4 that, if I left TCW, I would do so in a negotiated transaction that was accommodative to clients as well as mutually beneficial for TCW and myself.

SocGen has repeatedly said that Gundlach never presented an offer for TCW that was formal or realistic.

Regarding allegations of marijuana and pornography found after he was fired, Gundlach wrote that TCW opened locked drawers in his former Los Angeles office as well as searching a small personal office in Santa Monica where he paid the rent.

While these actions will no doubt be subjects of litigation, suffice it to say that I had every expectation of privacy in these spaces, which stored vestiges of closed chapters of my life, he wrote.

(Reporting by Aaron Pressman. Editing by Richard Chang)