Lew Sanders Launches Own Asset Management Firm, Says Barron’s (AB)

Barron’s reports that AllianceBernstein’s (NYSE: AB) former CEO Lew Sanders, who retired in 2008, is back in the game, but this time, managing his own money-management firm, Sanders Capital.

Launched in late 2009, the company has about $3.5 billion in assets under management. Sanders says that he has invested a "quite substantial" amount of his own capital in the business. During his career at AllianceBernstein, Sanders established a reputation as being "one of the smartest guys you'll ever meet on the Street," as one former employee put it.

Part of his challenge will be to make the transition from working at a large publicly traded company with hundreds of analysts to a small startup with much more limited resources. Currently, Sanders Capital has 10 research-related employees, and that number is expected to grow, though not by a lot. Sanders expects the firm to have about 30 to 40 institutional clients, and a few ultra-wealthy individuals. He also stresses that the firm will remain privately held.