Company: TSI
Filing Date: 2025-03-05
Form Type: N-CSR
Source: 0001193125-25-046168
Chunk: 44

Company: TCW STRATEGIC INCOME FUND INC
Filing Date: 2025-03-05
Form: N-CSR
Chunk 44
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 regarding the advisory fees charged by the Advisor to its institutional and sub-advisoryclients with similar investment mandates. The Board and the Independent Directors concluded that, although the fees paid by those clients generally were lower than advisory fees paid by the Fund, the differences appropriately reflected the more extensive services provided by the Advisor to the Fund and the Advisor’s significantly greater responsibilities and expenses with respect to the Fund, including the additional risks of managing a pool of assets for public investors, administrative burdens, daily pricing and valuation responsibilities, the supervision of vendors and service providers, and the costs of additional infrastructure and operational resources and personnel and of complying with and supporting the more comprehensive regulatory and governance regime applicable to registered investment companies with shares listed on a stock exchange. 5. The Advisor’s costs, level of profits, and economies of scale The Board and the Independent Directors reviewed information regarding the Advisor’s costs of providing services to the Fund, as well as the resulting level of profits to the Advisor. They reviewed the Advisor’s stated assumptions and methods of allocating certain costs, such as personnel costs, which constitute the Advisor’s largest operating cost. The Board and the Independent Directors recognized that the Advisor should be entitled to earn a reasonable level of profits for the services that it provides to the Fund. The 56 TCW Strategic Income Fund, Inc. Board and the Independent Directors also reviewed a comparison of the Advisor’s profitability with respect to the Fund to the profitability of certain unaffiliated publicly traded asset managers, which the Advisor believed supported its view that the Advisor’s profitability was reasonable. Based on their review, the Board and the Independent Directors concluded that they were satisfied that the Advisor’s level of profitability from its relationship with the Fund was not unreasonable or excessive. The Board and the Independent Directors considered the extent to which potential economies of scale could be realized as the Fund grows and whether the advisory fee reflects those potential economies of scale. They noted the breakpoint under the Agreement, which results in a lower advisory fee rate as the Fund grows larger. They recognized the Advisor’s view that the advisory fee compares favorably to peer group fees, and that expenses remain competitive even at higher asset levels and that the relatively low advisory fees reflect the potential economies of scale. The Board and the Independent Directors recognized the benefits of the Advisor’s substantial past and ongoing investment in the advisory business, such as successfully recruiting and retaining key professional talent, systems and technology upgrades, added resources dedicated to legal, compliance, risk management and cybersecurity programs, and improvements to the overall firm infrastructure, as well as the financial pressures of competing