Hartford Investment Management Company has hired Nasri Toutoungi as a senior v.p. and lead portfolio manager of its flagship core and core-plus style bond mutual funds. Toutoungi joins from Blackrock Financial Management. Andy Kohnke, managing director and a spokesman for the firm, says HIMCO has been growing assets and had been recruiting Toutoungi for several months to beef up its portfolio management team. Toutoungi takes over one of the roles that had been filled by Alison Granger, who retired at the end of last year to spend time with her family, Kohnke says. Granger could not be reached, and Toutoungi referred calls to Kohnke.
The Hartford Bond HLS Fund and the Hartford Total Return Bond Funds which wil be run by Toutoungi comprise some $3 billion of the firm's $80 billion in total fixed-income assets. Both funds have outperformed their category over the last one- and three-year periods, according to Morningstar. Toutongi will be part of a team of portfolio managers reporting to Bill Davison, managing director of the $17 billion in multi-sector fixed-income assets. Toutoungi, who has over 14 years of portfolio management experience, was a managing director at Blackrock, but left that firm some time last year.
Kohnke says he considers Toutoungi's position to be a new addition to the firm rather than a mere replacement of Granger, because she also had high-yield responsibilities that have been filled through internal promotions. David Hillmeyer and Christine Mozonski, who had been managing high-yield portfolios at the firm, are now co-heads of HIMCO's $1.3 billion in dedicated high-yield portfolios. Kohnke says additional high-yield hires may be forthcoming, but HIMCO has yet to reach a decision on that front. --Dan Freed