FE will provide Mercer’s research analysis of investment strategies to allow financial intermediaries to select and analyse funds, assess their clients’ investment fund and portfolio risk, and conduct analysis of fund sectors. Mercer will use FE in most markets outside the United States and Lipper within the US.
MAP was launched in October 2013 and is being used by the US wealth management firm, High Tower Advisors. Other services the consultancy has launched to advisers include the High Volume Research (HVR) and High Volume Monitoring (HVM) services. Mercer says these are aimed at giving financial advisers and wealth managers oversight on potential issues in funds in which their clients are invested. Coutts is a high-profile UK user of Mercer’s research capabilities.
Mercer senior partner and global head of wealth management Cara Williams says: “Wealth managers, private client asset managers, private banks and financial advisors will be able to improve the performance of their clients’ assets by accessing, through MAP, forward-looking, institutional-quality research and analytical tools. We’ve developed the system as an alternative to strictly quantitative approaches to asset allocation and manager selection.
”The tie-up with FR means we are now making available the research that was previously only available at an institutional basis down to an individual fund level.”
