Mercer Investments Loses President, Begins Revamp

A global restructuring of Mercer’s investment consulting business will bundle the firm’s investment and retirement capabilities as its investment president exits.

Phil de Cristo is to step down from his role after more than 10 years at the consulting firm, Mercer confirmed this week.

“My decision to leave created an opportunity to look at Mercer’s overall structure and create better alignment for our clients,” de Cristo said in an interview with CIO.

The changes, which will officially take place on January 1, include merging Mercer’s investment and retirement consulting practices into a newly-created wealth group, as well as creating a new investment research and management division.

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Andrew Kirton, formerly head of Mercer’s EuroPac investment division, will take over the latter effort as global CIO.

“We’ve concentrated our investment capabilities—our portfolio management, our investment research, and our alternatives capability—into a centralized organization under Andrew Kirton,” de Cristo said. “That will allow us to continue to be relevant to our core constituency who are looking for us to provide leading edge investment capabilities.”

The combination of Mercer’s investment and retirement consulting services, meanwhile, will merge its actuaries, plan design experts, investment consultants, and outsourced-CIO (OCIO) practitioners. In this US, this group will be led by Tom Murphy, currently head of OCIO.

“What we hope to do is be able to engage with clients in a more holistic way,” de Cristo said. “We want to bring clients a one-stop shop of capabilities.”

Nicole Musicco Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) has appointed Nicole Musicco to lead its public equities team beginning next year.

Musicco is currently regional managing director at OTPP’s Hong Kong office, where she relocated last year. Upon returning to OTPP’s Toronto headquarters in January, she will replace Wayne Kozun as senior vice president, public equities. Kozun is leaving the pension fund after more than 20 years, OTPP said in a statement.

Musicco joined OTPP in 2002 in the private equity team and helped establish the Hong Kong base, which opened in 2013.

In her role overseeing the pension’s Asian operations, Musicco “has the oversight responsibility for managing the full cycle of OTPP’s opportunity in origination, analysis, value creation, and execution of investment activities in Asia Pacific,” the pension fund said. Her replacement in Hong Kong has yet to be announced.

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Kozun was appointed to the public equities role in February as part of a leadership overhaul following the arrival of Bjarne Graven Larsen as CIO at the start of the year. Kozun was previously senior vice president for fixed income and alternatives, and has worked at OTPP since 1995.

The management overhaul also included new senior vice president roles for Ziad Hindo (capital markets), Andrew Claerhout (infrastructure and natural resources), and Michael Wissell (portfolio construction).

OTPP had C$77.5 billion (US$59.3 billion) in equities at the end of 2015.