Investor Influence

As part of our interview with Michael Carmen, we asked if there's been an investor who has been a particular influence or mentor in his career.

"The one that I've had the opportunity to work with here for the last nine years now, who I think is a phenomenal investor and who happen to run another Hartford fund is Saul Pannell. He's one who really developed the go-anywhere strategy and perfected it. He does go [out to] a wider range than [I do]–he'll go from value to growth, but I've learned so much in terms of how to think about and look at stocks, and really how to be more and more of a contrarian, which is really his biggest differentiating factor. You don't always associate a growth manager with being a contrarian, but I've been able to really learn a lot from him in terms of when it's time to move on to the next idea, when you're more in the consensus, and to look for things where you have a differentiated view of the growth prospects for a particular sector that is not well understood by the marketplace. I've just learned a tremendous amount from just being to work with him over almost the past decade."