Toronto-based CI Financial Corp. has embarked on an aggressive rebranding of Hartford Investments Canada Corp., the Toronto-based fund company it acquired this past December from U.S.-based parent Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. The rebranding includes a name change, changes in portfolio managers and four additions to the fund family.

CI is moving quickly to promote the acquired fund company. Hartford Canada has been renamed Castlerock Investments Inc. , and the Hartford name is disappearing from all its funds. Derek Green, president of CI Investments Inc. , has taken on the additional role of president of Castlerock and will be responsible for overseeing its business operations.

“The naming of a company is always a hard thing, but what ‘Castlerock’ says to us is ‘stability’,” Green says. “The idea of a castle and a rock speaks to strength and safety — and a good place to be.”

Castlerock has about $1.9 billion in assets under management — a small percentage of CI’s roughly $72 billion in AUM. With the four new Castlerock funds that were launched in mid-February, its family includes 21 mutual funds with equity, fixed-income or balanced mandates. Green says the focus of Castlerock is on providing broadly diversified funds that are appropriate for the core of an investor’s portfolio rather than narrowly focused niche or sector funds that can be highly volatile.

“Whether it’s equity, balanced or fixed-income, our objective is to offer core holdings, which is a metaphor for keeping the car out of the ditch,” Green says. “After the financial market difficulties of 2008 and 2009, the feedback from advisors and their clients is that they would rather play it safe and give up a little on the upside to have less volatility. There are nine [million] to 10 million Canadians on the verge of retirement — and their objective is not to lose the retirement money they’ve worked so hard to accumulate.”

Two of the new Castlerock funds are managed by Alan Radlo, a portfolio manager in Boston who manages CI’s Cambridge family of funds. Radlo now manages Castlerock Pure Canadian Equity Fund, which will hold no more than 10% foreign content; and Castlerock Canadian Growth Companies Fund, which will focus on small- and medium-capitalization companies.

The other two new funds — Castlerock Total Return Fund, a balanced fund; and Castlerock Enhanced Yield Fund, a fixed-income fund — are managed by Signature Global Advisors, a division within CI headed by senior vice president and chief investment officer Eric Bushell.

“All four of the new Castlerock mandates,” says Rudy Luukko, investment funds and personal finance editor with Morningstar Canada in Toronto, “are distinct in some way or another from existing mandates within the larger CI family.”

CI also has retained the portfolio-management services of Toronto-based Black Creek Investment Management Inc. and Regina-based Greystone Managed Investments Inc. , which had managed about 60% of Hartford’s AUM combined. Greystone now manages four Castlerock funds; Black Creek manages three.

However, the fixed-income portion of Castlerock Global Bal-anced Fund has been assigned to Signature Global Advisors, although Black Creek maintains responsibility for the equities selections.

As well, the portfolio managers for 11 Castlerock funds have been changed. Key among these are Castlerock Capital Appreciation Fund, Castlerock Canadian Dividend Fund and Castlerock Canadian Value Fund, now managed by Daniel Bubis, president of Winnipeg-based Tetram Capital Management Ltd. He also manages CI Canadian Investment Fund.

Mutual fund managers Beutel Goodman & Co. Ltd. of Toronto, Boston-based Wel-lington Management Co. and the Hartford parent organization’s investment team are no longer managing funds for the Castlerock fund family.

“One of the key reasons we did the acquisition was access to two management groups — Black Creek and Greystone,” says Green. “Bill Kanko and Richard Jenkins [of Black Creek] are household names and have a tremendous track record that goes back to their days at [Invesco] Trimark [Ltd. of Toronto], at which they ran a huge part of the asset base, while Greystone is well known in the pension space.

“With those two groups complemented by Signature Global Advisors, headed by Eric Bushell; Cambridge Advisors, headed by Alan Radlo; and Tetram, headed by Dan Bubis,” Green adds, “there is an incredible lineup of management talent.”

Castlerock has just completed a 10-city road show across Canada with Kanko and Jenkins. A conference — themed “What’s in the Cards” — is planned for mid-May in Las Vegas, at which 500 top advisors will hear from the entire Castlerock management team.

It is likely to take until 2012 to integrate Castlerock fully with CI, Green says, so that inves-tors will be able to switch freely between Castlerock funds and others within the CI family. As a result of an existing long-term contract for back-office services, he says, it would be too costly to integrate the fund families immediately. IE