Mercer lures big-name actuary
MercerHuman Resources Consulting has secured Australia’s biggest actuarial name, with David Knox joining its Melbourne-based superannuation consulting division last week.
The high profile Knox, who spent the last six years as a director of PricewaterhouseCoopers Actuarial, is earmarked to head Mercer’s public sector superannuation consultancy, which counts the Federal Government, as well as the state Governments of New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia, among its clients.
The newly-created position will also include finance and risk consulting work for private sector clients, as well as being the public face of Mercer’s advocacy on retirement incomes policy.
The former Melbourne University academic used the announcement of his new job to repeat his calls for the retirement age to be raised from 65 to at least 67.
“The Government’s been doing some good work on the flexible retirement concept and made it easier for people to work longer, but while it’s in the public psyche that you can get the age pension from 65, they’re really banging their heads against the wall in terms of the sustainability of the system,” Knox said.
Knox is a former board member of the Australian Prudential RegulationAuthority (APRA) and the Associationof Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA), and recently joined the Financial Advising Committee of the Securities Institute.
Recommended for you
Digital advice tools are on the rise, but licensees will need to ensure they still meet adviser obligations or potentially risk a class action if clients lose money from a rogue algorithm.
Shaw and Partners has merged with Sydney wealth manager Kennedy Partners Wealth, while Ord Minnett has hired a private wealth adviser from Morgan Stanley.
Australian investors are more confident than their APAC peers in reaching their financial goals and are targeting annual gains of more than 10 per cent, according to Fidelity International.
Zenith Investment Partners has lost its head of portfolio solutions Steven Tang after 17 years with the firm, the latest in a series of senior exits from the research house.