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Mercer's global investment consulting business provides services to more than 2,750 clients with assets of over US$3.5trillion in 35 countries. Mercer provides investment advice and tools to institutional investors such as pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurers, foundations and endowments and, increasingly, retail intermediaries such as private banks and multi-manager funds.

Tony Cole, Mercer worldwide partner and business leader for its investment consulting business in Asia Pacific, said expanding into India was a natural progression for the business after it started operations in China a few months ago.

"As India opens up and invites more foreign investors, it follows that our business establishes a presence on the ground to research investment opportunities for our global institutional and retail intermediary clients. Mercer's local presence will also help us evaluate the effect the growth of India has on the performance of other asset classes."

As part of the launch in India, Mercer has appointed two research analysts in Mumbai and plans to hire additional analysts with experience in alternative asset classes.

Rashmi Mehrotra has been appointed as business leader for investment consulting in India and head of the retail services unit for Asia Pacific. She will provide investment consulting services to the Indian market with a focus on retail intermediaries.

"Indian high-net-worth investors are also amongst the most demanding and sophisticated clients. They demand institutional-quality investment research at prices that represent good value to them. At the same time, private banks face a shortage of qualified and experienced talent such as relationship managers.

"Mercer can help meet the needs of private banks by boosting their internal resources with Mercer's high-quality, global institutional research, tools to deliver this research efficiently and targeted investment training for their staff," Mehrotra said.