The Dublin office of global consultancy firm Mercer has launched a multimanager investment business which is set to take on the biggest players in the European market. Caroline Madden reports.

The launch represents an expansion of Mercer Global Investment (MGI), which already operates in Australia, the US and Canada.

The new European business, which received authorisation to begin operating last month, has already accumulated $500 million (€397 million) in assets under management. Globally MGI manages in the region of $12 billion.

One high profile client which MGI Europe has already secured is Irish Life, which has "outsourced" its multimanager fund to the new business.

Hooman Kaveh, formerly chief investment officer of Irish Life's multimanager business, was recruited by MGI earlier this year. John Poole, who was previously head of operations in Russell Investment Group in London, has been appointed as chief operating officer.

The new European division has built up a number of other clients in Ireland, the UK and Italy, and Tom Murphy, head of MGI Europe, expects that the business will expand into four or five more European countries within the next 12 months.

Under the multimanager structure, MGI is appointed by clients to manage their assets. In turn MGI splits these assets between a wide range of specialist investment managers, which clients would generally not be able to access directly.

"Many trustees simply don't have the time or the expertise to hire and fire investment managers," Mr Murphy said. " It's an onerous task and a growing number want to delegate these decisions to investment experts."

He said the decision to launch MGI Europe from Ireland was an endorsement of Mercer's Dublin office.