Mercer appointed Sunsuper adviser

The $5.6 billion Sunsuper fund has appointed Mercer Investment Consulting to review its range of investment options.

The consultant’s initial task will be to assess the line-up of managers offered by the fund outside of its 10 in-house investment products.

These comprise five individual asset class options and five packaged options, such as Sunsuper Balanced and Sunsuper Growth.

Sunsuper manages $5.6 billion in assets for more than 750,000 members.

Sunsuper chief executive Don Luke said Mercer's appointment "strikes a balance" between internal and external investing expertise within the fund.

"It will help us to meet the challenge of effectively embracing and managing competing views so that we can act decisively."

Mercer will also continue to advise on international equities invested in a platform shared by Sunsuper, Mercer and AMP, a position to which it was appointed in August 2004.

Meanwhile, Mercer Human Resource Consulting has appointed Gary Burke as new head of its Funds-of-Managers business, Mercer Global Investments.

Mercer Global Investments is a new division of Mercer which will be responsible for implemented consulting and multi-manager investment products.

Burke has more than 16 years experience in investment management, including periods as chief investment officer at both Zurich Scudder and Deutsche Funds Management, as well as earlier experience at Rothschild as Head of Portfolio Management.