Metropolitan West Asset Management has hired Hahn Kang as specialist portfolio manager in charge of ABS, according to Tad Rivelle, MWAM chief investment officer. Hahn joins MWAM in Los Angeles from Lehman Brothers in New York, where he worked for seven years as an ABS trader, with a focus on secondary prime mortgage ABS. He will report to Rivelle. Kang says that his position was newly created, in order to give the asset management firm a new exposure in the ABS business.
At Lehman, Hahn was senior v.p. and reported to managing directorGordon Sweely. Sweely says Hahn's position has already been filled via an internal move, but declined to say by whom.
Kang says the move is designed to bring an ABS focus to MWAM's product line management approach, noting there are already three specialist portfolio management positions covering the mortgage, treasury and corporate sectors. According to Kahn, the other three specialist portfolio managers are Mitch Flack for MBS (BW, 4/15), Brian Loo for treasuries and Stephen Kane for corporates. Kang says he currently works with two ABS analysts and that the firm is also planning on hiring a few more analysts, in the near term. Kang says he joined MWAM because the firm's business has shown a strong track record of growing assets under management, and that it needed a dedicated ABS management team.