Big Queensland-based fund, Sunsuper has appointed Mercer Investing Consulting to a key advisory role covering individual fund manager strategies.
The appointment, announced on in mid-January, is regarded as putting the final touches on the expansion of Suncorp’s investment team which has been restructured over the past 12 months following the fund’s decision to move to a larger internal team and place greater emphasis on global investment consulting advisers.
The appointment will see Mercer reviewing the current line-up of investment managers offered outside Suncorp’s in-house investment options.
Commenting on the move, Sunsuper’s chief executive, Don Luke said the appointment of Mercer combined with the earlier appointment of Russell Investment Consulting as the fund’s lead consultant would allow Sunsuper’s chief investment officer, Jack Gray to reinforce key areas of his focus.
“Jack’s immediate priorities include deepening and strengthening the fund’s investment beliefs; a review of the fund’s strategic asset allocation and completing a research paper on long-term investment,” Luke said.
“With our reinforced team of internal and external advisors, we hope to free Jack up from the day-to-day duties of CIO to allow him to focus on his true love of forging new ideas and approaches to investing,” he said.
Russell Investment Consulting last year replaced van Eyk as Sunsuper’s lead consultant, although specialist consultant Sovereign Research remained as adviser on alternative assets.
