在腐烂的业务中是1的重点是什么？
由Rich Blake.
July 2001
亚博赞助欧冠机构投资者杂志
在腐烂的业务中是1的重点是什么？在美国和U.K的领先养老金顾问中询问William M. Mercer Investment Consulting。
斯蒂芬维德曼作为股东活动家的名字。当他去年担任1亿美元的杰西史密斯诺伊斯基金会的总统时，他需要一家坚定的公司为拓展组织进行绘制的未来，这是第一个提交股东决议的非营利组织。他的选择：William M. Mercer投资咨询。
"Originally, they were brought on to do a one-time study, but we were so impressed by their resources and professionalism that we ended up giving them a two-year contract," says Victor De Luca, Viederman's successor as the foundation's president. "Mercer does an excellent job."
Indeed. When it comes to investment consulting, no firm is more powerful or prestigious than William M. Mercer. Whether they are behemoths or boutiques, asset managers know they must pass muster with Mercer gatekeepers to reach many of the deep-pocketed pension funds, foundations and endowments whose business they covet. The firm controls access to more than $1.5 trillion in global assets, consulting full-time to more than 900 clients from Seoul to San Diego. Mercer boasts a brand name widely respected for its excellence; in the two biggest markets for pension consulting, the U.S. and the U.K., it claims the No. 1 market share.
Yet for all this hard-earned prestige, don't expect to hear champagne corks popping at the New York headquarters of William M. Mercer Investment Consulting. The high-profile U.S. operation appears to be in trouble.
从利润开始。在美国外面，在那里有相对较少的球员而且只有适度的价格竞争，Mercer报告了养老金咨询中可敬的营业利润率为10％。然而，在其家庭市场中，因为竞争对手在费用上无情地削弱并推出了人才的成本，Mercer几乎没有休息。
The firm confronts an alarming talent drain. Three heads of the U.S. investment consulting business have come and gone in less than two years; in that same time, half of its 30 top consultants have decamped. One result: A growing number of Mercer's pension funds have switched their lead consultants several times within a year or two. That's a disruptive and unsettling pattern in a business defined by the personal relationship between consultant and client. And clients are beginning to get antsy. Several, including the New York State Teachers' Retirement System and the Knoxville City Employees Pension Fund, have left Mercer. Recently, the $400 million Virginia College Savings Plan, a state-run prepaid college tuition program that has worked with three Mercer consultants in the past year, decided to cut the firm loose. "This turnover has been a bad situation for us," says Diana Cantor, the executive director for the Richmond, Virginia-based plan, which expects to put its consulting business up for competitive bid this summer.
“在业界爆发的行业中存在着感知，”精品咨询公司峰会战略集团总裁Steve Holmes表示，这是一个基于圣路易斯的区域竞争对手。“该公司似乎在风中扭曲。”
为什么？许多目前和前任员工觉得Mercer，因为它在赚钱管理世界的所有摇摆时，仍然是自己的家中的抛弃。对他们来说，Mercer是纽约人力资源顾问William M. Mercer，Inc的忽视了其公司父母的被忽视的后代，该公司是保险公司Marsh＆Mclennan COS的子公司。
By the numbers, the consulting business certainly doesn't amount to much: Although Marsh & McLennan doesn't break out the group's financial results, Mercer's margins clearly lag behind the 10 percent operating margins for the U.S. investment consulting industry and the 14.6 percent margins for Mercer's own overall consulting operations. Although Mercer runs investment consulting groups in 14 countries, those 40 offices essentially operate on their own. In the U.S. Mercer's investment consulting business reports to the larger U.S. consulting group, which sells benefits, communications and health care services. But even when the worldwide operations of Mercer's investment consulting units were tallied in Marsh Mac's 2000 annual report, they reported revenues of only $80 million, contributing just 4 percent of Mercer's total worldwide consulting revenues of $2.1 billion and less than 1 percent of Marsh Mac's global revenues of $10.2 billion.
"In the industry we were treated with the highest regard," says one ex-Mercer consultant. "But within our own organization, the investment consulting practice got very few resources - and very little respect."
Mercer退伍军人抱怨缺乏或资源。当美国养老金咨询集团的高管拟议购买竞争对手或启动基金基金会的业务时，他们的老板在Mercer的美国咨询小组将其转向下来。当养老金顾问要求额外的新雇用额外资金时，他们公司上司的答案几乎总是没有。
Mercer certainly doesn't seem to compete on pay. Senior consultants at Mercer top out at about $300,000, according to former staffers; their counterparts at Callan Associates or Frank Russell Co. can make between $500,000 and $750,000 a year, with an elite handful at Callan earning more than $1 million. At Callan and other privately held firms, staffers may also receive equity stakes in the business.
可以肯定的是，其他公司确实有历史。Mercer支持业务 - 它开始作为一个福利顾问，通过20世纪80年代中期的收购纳入养老金咨询 - 但投资咨询一直是Callan和许多其他Mercer竞争对手的核心竞争力。
“在像威廉M. Mercer这样的公司，投资咨询几乎无关紧要，”Angeles Investment Advisors，一家小型咨询公司的校长迈克尔·罗森说。“他们将无法吸引或保持最佳和最聪明的人。”
Nonsense, says Barry McInerney, 37, who took the top job at Mercer Investment Consulting three months ago and is quick to play down any woes in the U.S. arm. "We have a strong bench and continue to attract new talent," says McInerney, a former actuary who previously served as the head of Mercer's Canada and Latin America pension consulting groups. "Yes, we've had some turnover, but it's cyclical, and we think it's a passing trend. In a way, we are just starting out, and we see a lot of potential for growth."
蒂姆·园丁，49，伦敦的全球实践领导者所有Mercer的投资咨询业务，听起来更加警示。“我们在美国有很多营业额。我想如果它不放弃，那么我们会遇到麻烦，”他说。虽然养老金咨询小组的负责人向祖国的较大咨询业务报告，但园丁始终如一地关注Mercer的全球养老金业务;作为Mercer双重报告结构的一部分，投资咨询练习领导者如Mcinerney所有答案都回答了每个国家的整体咨询经营老板。
“是美国的练习，因为它可以是稳定的，人员明智？”园丁继续。“不，这不是。它是世界末日吗？不，我乐观地说，我们可以对船只提供吗？绝对。”
To that end, McInerney hopes to recruit more large multinational accounts, some of which are consolidating their cross-border pension plans and can be more profitable to serve. Mercer's international presence should help further that cause.
Mercer并不孤单地感到挤压。投资咨询一直是管理机构资金管理的劳动密集型，成本低效的缺水。当然，它提供了清晰的需求：养老基金，特别是公共计划，承担受负责任地管理计划资产的信托义务。聘请关于金钱经理选择和评估的指导顾问提供了封面，如果投资选择才能酸。
但养老基金在咨询支付中保持紧张，这通常是作为年度保留者或每小时收费支付的。对于所有的声望和影响，顾问从未设法破解金钱经理享有的基于利润丰厚的资产的费用安排。与此同时，顾问必须与金钱经理竞争他们的专业人员。
Exacerbating that pressure, consultants have lost prospective customers as defined benefit plans, which almost always use consultants, have been eclipsed by 401(k)s, which generally don't. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, the number of defined benefit plans has fallen from 150,000 in 1980 to about 60,000 in 1997. During that period defined contribution plans almost doubled in number, to 660,542. Not surprisingly then, operating profit margins for investment consultants fell from about 15 percent in the mid-1980s to roughly 10 percent today.
一些侵蚀反映了除威廉·梅克的遗嘱之外的低球费。在20世纪90年代中期和末期，由于该公司推动抢占其竞争对手的市场份额，它将其费用从200,000美元的费用削减到基本年度留置者，价格低至50,000美元。竞争对手也减少了他们的费用，行业利润落在董事会上。同时，Mercer积极招募新的员工，将其投资咨询人员翻倍，并允许其开销失控。
Marsh Mac预计其部门和子公司的增长率和运营利润率为15％至20％，思考在1998年销售或关闭投资咨询业务。它决定士兵，部分是因为William M. Mimer，Inc。，由人力资源，退休和医疗保健咨询主导的较大咨询业务，在营销本身中找到了一家全方位服务公司。
But whereas investment consulting represents a respected and substantial part of the overall business at Russell and Wilshire Associates, the investment consultants at Mercer say they have often felt like second-class citizens.
这种感觉可能有助于解释最近的员工精彩dus. Many consultants lose talent to better-paying money management jobs, and Mercer is no exception. But several respected staffers have abandoned Mercer for its competitors. The most notable departure was that of John Dickson, the well-regarded head of the Southeast practice, who recently joined Capital Resource Advisors in Chicago.
与此同时，Mersh Mac于1970年购买的梅尔什·莫克斯·普通投资也面临着Mercer Investment Consulting的魅力怨恨。前Mersh Mac的报告报告称，Putnam高管们在德州的顾问 - 适当 - 弯曲的事实落后，避免在他们的货币经理搜索中偏爱Putnam。
"Consultants at Mercer used to have a bias against us. When in doubt, they'd pick the other firm," says John Brown, head of institutional business at Putnam. "But the past year has been a turning point for us. In categories where we do well, in active EAFE management especially, we get hired. Mercer is still viciously independent, but when we should be hired, we are."
Mercer consultants value that independence, but McInerney has his work cut out for him in renewing a sense of pride among the Mercer troops. Says Gardener, "We can't compete with money management in terms of compensation, but we should strive to be the employer of choice in our own industry."
在加强美世的投资咨询业务中，园丁说，“麦克尼恩的最大工作将使Mercer成为一个有吸引力的工作地点。”
更容易说出。
Pension consultants have been plying their trade for the better part of 35 years, but the industry did not come into its own in the U.S. until 1974, when president Gerald Ford signed ERISA into law. Managers of pension funds understood that they suddenly faced new obligations to ensure that their plan assets were prudently invested. In theory, at least, consultants could further that cause.
在20世纪70年代，少数公司占据了小型行业。排名包括AG Becker（这成为SEI CORP.）;Drieher，Rogers＆Associates（后来的rogerscasey）和o'brien associates（现在是威尔希尔员工）。
In these early years pension consultants focused on performance measurement and building proprietary databases to evaluate money managers. By the early 1980s they had expanded their offerings to include more strategic advice on investment policy, asset weightings and style selection.
顾问充当看台，向养老基金受托人提供管理资金的方法。除了进行资产分配研究外，顾问还可以进行一个或多个货币管理器搜索以及监视器性能。
Mercer追溯到1945年，当时一家温哥华企业家威廉曼森美凯师推出了北美第一家咨询公司之一，雕刻了大公司的一般战略顾问。1959年，除了保险经纪业务之外，在1959年销售给Marsh Mac，在咨询咨询方面有很大的存在。
1974年，在Erisa之后，Marsh Mac将其所有咨询业务融合在Mercer Banner下，一年后，这一实体成为William M. Mamer，Inc。
Through a series of acquisitions in the late 1970s and early 1980s - among them such well-known actuarial consulting firms as Duncan C. Fraser & Co. and MPA in the U.K., John Eriksen & Partners in New Zealand and Campbell & Cook in Australia - Mercer became a global presence in benefits and retirement consulting.
The 1984 acquisition of Meidinger Associates, a Louisville, Kentucky-based consulting firm, brought Mercer into investment consulting. Primarily an actuarial and benefits consultant, by 1984 Meidinger had also developed a small but highly regarded investment consulting practice that served about 45 pension plans and was led by David Eager.
Meidinger收购三年后，Mercer在购买芝加哥的A.S.时进一步进入投资咨询。汉森。Mercer对三家公司仍然是一个遥远的威胁，然后占据投资咨询：Frank Russell;罗杰斯，凯西＆伙伴和SEI资本资源。
By the early 1990s Mercer Investment Consulting, with less than $15 million in annual revenues and little profit, was essentially a collection of about a dozen fiefdoms, geographically based units that served their local clients and had little contact with one another. With roughly 150 clients on its roster, Mercer Investment Consulting had begun to earn a national reputation for smart, solid performance, but inside William M. Mercer, Inc., the investment consultants had virtually no cachet.
“在20世纪90年代，投资咨询几乎是Mercer组织内部的刺激物，”召回一个以前的员工。“这总是需要金钱，从来没有盈利。”
1990年至1993年间，该部门在没有明确的领导者的情况下摔倒了。一个五个人的实践委员会，其中Dallas顾问Carol Furifer是最高级的成员，有效地担任业务。1994年，本集团最强大的生产者，FERFER和LAWRENCE GIBSON成为投资咨询业务的共同负责人。
福特使她的名字签署了一系列主要账户，包括科罗拉多州公共雇员的退休协会和纽约国家共同退休基金。作为大西洋中部地区的负责人，吉布森在公司内很有喜好和钦佩。The pair reported to Timothy Lynch, the former Meidinger chief who had risen through the ranks to head all of Mercer's consulting in the U.S. Lynch, who was preoccupied with melding the larger retirement and health care consulting practices of Mercer and Hansen, gave Gibson and Proffer free rein.
As the two consultants surveyed the landscape in 1994, they saw a firm that was No. 9 in the industry, with just $107 billion in clients' assets and revenues of $15 million. At the time, the No. 1 firm, Frank Russell, handled clients with $500 billion in assets; SEI, at No. 2, had $400 billion.
Ambitious, energetic and convinced that Mercer's reputation could be far better exploited, Gibson and Proffer put together a five-year plan aimed at catapulting the firm to the top of the industry.
他们的议程，林奇和他的较高型赞同：生长大，快速增长。Gibson和Furefer决定聘请更多员工，集中资金经理研究和选择。但即使在这个关键时刻，Mercer Investment顾问也受到他们的公司父母的陪伴。当Gibson要求从Marsh Mac提供额外资源来帮助资助扩张，他被拒绝了。尽管最重要的是，吉布森和柔佛的授权决定削减价格以抓住市场份额。
毫不奇怪，价格削减确实有助于美世行为排名。到1996年，其收入总计3,000万美元，超过1994年的两倍。
1996年，留下了一份基于达拉斯的私募股权基金会的Crossroads集团的工作，她很快就留下了基于宾夕法尼亚州的朝圣者和员工的韦恩。但在大多数情况下，Mercer的营业额仍然适度。感到相信该公司在正确的赛道上，吉布森于1998年底开始探讨自己的宠物项目：创造美克的众所周知的Callan Investinments Institute，他称之为Mercer全球投资论坛。Mercer的发言是一年为期两天的会议，每年举行四次，其中一组100亿美元支付50,000美元的人可以聊天他们希望征求他们希望征求的计划发起人。即时成功，论坛可能现在是Mercer Investment Consulting的最有利可图的业务。
For both Callan and Mercer, though, success has come at some intangible cost to their reputations. Critics, mostly independent consultants who don't throw their own industry schmooze-fests, argue that the forums pose an inescapable conflict of interest. How can a consultant offer truly objective advice about selecting money managers, they ask, when some of those same money managers are paying juicy fees to attend their conferences?
“在过去的两年里，我们已经看到了越来越多的大型计划赞助商展示了对顾问的替代收入来源的担忧，”Jennifer Cooper说，他的库珀顾问专门从事养老基金选择并管理他们的咨询关系。“这个问题是这些顾问是否服务于多个大师。”
吉布森的论坛被证明是成功的，但他的另一个大举动于1998年，推动了一个区域投资顾问的多百万美元收购，原来是一个主要的崩溃。该公司由Meidinger Consureging Pioneer渴望的公司成立，在Mercer的Aegis下失去了数十万美元，主要是因为几个重要的Rainmakers销售后很快就会戒烟。
"It was a black hole," says one source. Eager, who last year left Mercer to join Driehaus Capital Management as East Coast head of sales and marketing, admits that "the growth of the franchise was not in line with what either of us had originally envisioned." Through 1998 and 1999 Mercer Investment Consulting barely broke even.
Like the indulgent parent of a wayward adolescent, William M. Mercer, Inc. had tolerated the paltry margins of investment consulting. But by the autumn of 1999, Lynch, the head of the larger consulting group, had decided it was time for a change. In September he summoned Gibson to his Manhattan office and told him that he was being replaced as practice leader by Asghar Alam, a former actuary who had spent no time at all in investment consulting. Gibson's new role was left unclear.
Coming as it did just three days before a national client meeting, Lynch's move seemed especially harsh to Mercer's investment consultants. Replacing Gibson with an actuary who had no experience in investment consulting seemed extreme - and another sign that investment consulting had become a pariah within the firm.
吉布森不会详细阐述，但他承认，他的降级是他在2000年3月留下美世的决定成为一个校长的一个因素，成为汤普森，西格尔沃尔姆斯利，弗吉尼亚州的里士满的价值股票专家。
阿拉姆一个无情看业务d concluded that the group's costs were out of line. He shut several offices, and he severed ties with some of the firm's unprofitable clients. He also jettisoned Mercer's portfolio performance measurement group. Once a core competency in investment consulting, the group had become something of a commodity.
By the end of last year, Alam's cost-cutting boosted margins to something less than 5 percent. But the new chief could not stem the tide of staff departures. Within four months of Gibson's exit, Mercer Investment Consulting had lost a half dozen stars. In stark contrast, rival Callan has lost only two out of 30 veteran consultants over the past five years. Most of Callan's top consultants have been there at least a decade.
美国行业可能会摇晃。独立顾问库珀说，“一些大玩家可能会决定出去。”虽然沼泽Mac高管两年前决定不卖掉Mercer Investment咨询，但他们可以轻松改变主意。
Mcinerney坚持下去，没有销售。由于他巩固了他对业务的持有，员工和竞争对手都会密切关注奖品慈信客户。这是1210亿美元的纽约国家共同退休基金。在四年内与四个Mercer顾问合作后，该基金将其咨询合同上个月投标投标。“我们评估合同的任何时候，营业额和人员质量都是我们考虑的因素之一，”基金发言人说。
这是谨慎和合适的，因为任何声誉良好的财务顾问都会同意 - 但它可能不是美国1号养老金顾问想要听到的。
离开家
Mercer Investment Consulting可能会在美国，但除了其家庭草坪之外，商业看起来非常好。
“如果你认为美世从全球的角度来看,你might recognize why we're less concerned about the situation in the U.S. than you might guess," says Tim Gardener, the firm's London-based global consulting practice leader, who tracks Mercer's worldwide consulting practices.
Of Mercer's $1.5 trillion in global assets under advisory, $800 billion is held by non-U.S. institutions. About $400 billion comes from the U.K., where Mercer is one of only four firms dominating the $1.1 trillion pension market. Among Mercer's 350 U.K. clients: the $25 billion Consignia Pension Plan (formerly the U.K. Post Office Pension Plan) and the $30 billion Universities Superannuation Scheme.
Although many global pension consultants focus on just a few international markets, Mercer covers a wide swath of territory. From 40 offices, including a dozen in Europe and four in Asia, Mercer serves 900 full-retainer consulting clients, 500 of them based in Europe, Asia or Latin America.
“在我们处理的顾问中，在全球范围内，没有人接近Mercer，”北方信任全球投资机构销售总监Stephen Potter。
More than half of the firm's roughly $80 million in global investment consulting revenues in 2000 came from outside the U.S. In the U.S. and U.K., as well as in Canada and Australia, Mercer ranks No.1 in market share (as measured by the total number of clients). Last month Australia's Commonwealth Bank selected Mercer as its investment consultant to oversee some $15 billion in master pension trusts. As part of the contract, Mercer will provide advice on the selection and evaluation of fund managers for the new trusts that the bank will set up as it consolidates a dozen trusts into one or two megafunds.
This summer Japan's Government Investment Pension Fund, which manages state pensions, will deploy Mercer consultants to help overhaul its investments. The GIPF is asking for competitive bids to manage more than $200 billion in funds - a substantial sum by anyone's measure. Mercer gatekeepers will help determine who gets to star in the show.
多年来，Mercer的咨询业务在海外比美国更有利可图，为什么？投资咨询咨询的最大组成部分，员工薪金，员工薪金往往会在U.K.和加拿大往往在美国，而费用客户愿意支付往往更高。在国外竞争较少，营销费用往往会降低。“我们认为我们在美国添加了相同数量的价值，为什么我们无法展示它？”问园丁。“这是一个难题，如果我知道答案，我们就会在美国赚钱。”