Ex-OnePath CIO joins Mercer

Mercer has made a number of new additions to its New Zealand investment team, including the high-profile appointment of former OnePath chief investment officer Philip Houghton-Brown.

Friday, July 20th 2012, 6:00AM

A casualty of the recent restructuring at OnePath, Houghton-Brown has been hired by the KiwiSaver default provider in the role of leader, investments, New Zealand.

Martin Lewington, head of Mercer in New Zealand, said that with Houghton-Brown’s appointment his own role would switch away from investments and focus more on working with key clients and building Mercer’s business.

He said Houghton-Brown’s job description wasn’t precisely defined; as well as leading the investment team he would also be working with clients and, given his skills background, would get involved with manager research.

“Often people join us in one role and the clients value them more in something else and they find they enjoy that role more as well,” he said.

Mercer is a manager of managers and Lewington said the function of its investment team was vastly different to most New Zealand fund managers.

Its focus, he said, is largely on picking which managers to recommend for various asset classes.

“A lot is done at global level but actual selection of managers and building of product solutions is done by the investment team in Australia. If there a New Zealand component they’ll reach out to the Kiwis.

“For anything at New Zealand investment level we’ll make a recommendation to the investment committee which I sit on.

Mercer has made a number of other appointments, which are detailed in the people section of Good Returns.

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