Mercer Investment Consulting (Mercer IC) has confirmed Marianne Feeley will head its Australian equities manager research team, which it is seeking to expand from three full-time staff to four.

Feeley will permanently replace Nerida Law, who left for a multimanager role with HSBC in Hong Kong last year. This will be in addition to her management responsibilities for Mercer IC’s research efforts in the Asia Pacific region, a team of 10 full time researchers in Australia, NZ, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. The head of Mercer IC, Simon Eagleton, said Feeley would be supported by Bill Dwyer (lead researcher for Australian small caps as well as covering part of the broad cap universe), David Scobie (covering Trans-Tasman equities) and an additional full time researcher who is expected to join the consultancy by the end of the first quarter this year. Megan Pham recently joined the team as a research assistant, while a number of other Mercer client consultants also contribute to the manager research effort on a part time basis. Meanwhile, yesterday marked the beginning of Mercer’s first-ever consumer advertising in Australia, promoting its Mercer Wealth Solutions retail brand to a target audience of professional 25-54 year olds. Mercer chief executive, Peter Promnitz, said the print and display campaign would run in three six-week bursts during 2007, using the slogan “;Be mercenary with your money”;.