Mercer Investment Consulting, bucking the trend against its recent hiring spree, has been forced to restructure its senior ranks following the departure of its national practice leader Christopher Andrews who left to join Macquarie yesterday.
Andrews, who worked with Macquarie between 1988-1992 re-joins the property investment banking team, headed up by Matthew Banks and will be replaced at Mercer by executive director Tony Cole.
Cole previously held the role between 1996-2001 and according to Mercer chief executive Peter Promnitz, Cole will focus on pushing the group’s strategy to continue its consulting activities across superannuation and other institutional investment advisory markets.
“The funds management business that was pioneered by Australia is now a global Mercer business initiative and therefore it is time to constitute this activity separately to give it the management focus that it demands,” Promnitz said.
As part of the reshuffle, Cole will relinquish day-to-day business management of Mercer Wealth Solutions, with current national practice leader David Anderson stepping in to fill this role.
For Mercer, the restructure is part of a series of executive appointments of late, which also includes the appointment of Promnitz to the top job.
Other recent recruitment wins have included former van Eyk head of quantitative research Sidney Chong who was lured to the group last week where he joins Dragana Timitojevic and Rashmi Mehrotra, also formerly of van Eyk.
