2025 Vault Rankings
- Prestige#12
At a Glance
“Exposure in building HR knowledge.”
“Good work/life balance, good culture/work environment.”
“Great leadership and great cooperative relationships within the team.”
“Big ship so slow to adapt, some middle management.”
“The pay.”
“Innovation.”
“Respected name in HR.”
“Strong in wealth and asset management.”
“Second-tier.”
About Mercer Limited APAC
Mercer delivers advice and technology-driven solutions that help organizations meet the health, wealth and career needs of a changing workforce. Mercer’s more than 25,000 employees are based in 44 countries and the firm operates in over 130 countries. Mercer is a business of Marsh & McLennan Companies (NYSE: MMC), the world’s leading professional services firm in the areas of risk, strategy and people with 76,000 colleagues and annualized revenue approaching $17 billion. Through its market-leading businesses including Marsh, Guy Carpenter and Oliver Wyman, Marsh & McLennan helps clients navigate an increasingly dynamic and complex environment.
Different names, same business
From the beginning, Mercer has been in the business of putting people's futures first. In 1945, William M. Mercer, Ltd began in Canada and grew to become a premier provider of actuarial and benefits consulting services. Acquired by Marsh & McLennan Companies in 1959 and merged with their own employee benefits department, the firm expanded through growth and acquisition to become a global leader in health, wealth and career.
Breaking down the business
Mercer organizes its business around three key areas: Health, Wealth and Career, each with distinct areas of practice.
Health
Mercer is a leader in the health and benefits marketplace globally, and is one of the largest health benefits broker in Asia. The firm delivers trusted advisory services, brokerage and innovative solutions that help employers and their employees improve the quality, cost and experience of healthcare. Whether a small business, a domestic employer, or a large multinational firm, Mercer can deliver custom health and benefits solutions that meet unique client needs. Mercer provides access to local market thought leaders as well as national and international resources that advise on regulatory compliance and innovative strategies across health benefits, pharmacy, network providers and population health. In Asia, Mercer’s Health business goes to market with its Marsh & McLennan Companies sister company, Marsh, as “Mercer Marsh Benefits”.
Wealth
Mercer is the world's largest institutional investment advisor with more than $12 trillion in assets under advisement and $282 billion in under delegated management. The firm is also a global leader in the provision of actuarial and related services. Its Wealth business provides services to clients in four broad areas:
- Defined Contribution (DC) - DC plans are now the primary source of retirement income for many individuals. Mercer's consultants work with clients to develop retirement and financial wellness strategies that support desired business and employee outcomes. They advise sponsors on investments, governance and management of fiduciary risk through the firm's delegated DC offerings.
- Defined Benefit (DB) - Mercer’s consultants provide clients with a holistic view of assets and liabilities within their pension plans. The firm's innovative strategies help clients take advantage of market opportunities and execute both asset and liability transactions efficiently. capacity range of advisory and delegated services are available.
- Financial Intermediaries – Mercer offers extensive capital-market and manager-selection research capabilities, as well as asset allocation model portfolios, helping financial intermediaries to reduce risk and achieve better outcomes for their own clients.
Career
Mercer's Career business provides products and services to clients in four broad areas:
- Talent management - Mercer's Talent Strategy and Mobility practices help clients forecast their talent needs and devise strategies to build and leverage talent.
- HR functional excellence - Mercer's HR Transformation experts help organizations improve the way HR operates and transform people processes and practices to optimize their talent and enable HR talent to thrive.
- Digitization – Mercer’s Digital experts help organizations of all sizes to transition to a digital future and empower the workforce for the future. As an implementation partner for both Workday and ServiceNow, Mercer is committed to transforming its clients' businesses in a sustainable way to ensure they get the most out of their cloud platform investment.
- Communication & Change - Mercer's dedicated Communication practice supports the firm’s work in the areas of careers and talent, as well as in relation to communicating wellness programs, employee benefits and wealth management strategies. Clients also often come to Mercer for its change capabilities in support of organizational changes and technology implementations - areas which all practices touch on.
The company's extended offerings include a dedicated M&A business, which is part of its Multinational Client Group.
Multinational Client Group (includes M&A Consulting and International Consulting)
Mercer's Multinational Client Group (MCG) brings together the Global Consulting and M&A consulting businesses, plus four Industry Verticals (Financial Services, Energy, Insurance and Technology) to have a client centric view and intimate knowledge of industries and related people, investment and risk challenges to enhance client value. It also includes the firm's When Women Thrive platform.
In the News
26 June 2019
These are the World’s Most Expensive Cities for Expats in 2019
Hong Kong has been named the world’s most expensive city for expatriates for the second year running, according to an annual report by consulting firm Mercer.
Eight of the top 10 cities named in the Cost of Living survey are in Asia, up from six entries in 2018. Hong Kong’s red-hot housing market and fluctuations in its currency—which is pegged to the strong U.S. dollar—kept the city at the top of the list. Tokyo came in second, followed by Singapore, Seoul, Zurich, and Shanghai.
13 March 2019
Singapore tops quality of living ranking and personal safety for Asia: Mercer poll
SINGAPORE has come out tops as the country with the highest quality of living in Asia-Pacific, with the highest rank in personal safety.
Following Singapore’s lead in the ranking are five Japanese cities, namely Tokyo, Kobe, Yokohama, Osaka, and Nagoya, according to Mercer’s quality of living survey. After these cities are Hong Kong and Seoul, which rose two places from the year before from returning political stability following the arrest of its president last year.
11 June 2019
Retirement Funds Heavily Invested in Stocks at a Risky Time for Markets
Pension funds in growing economies in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East have a sharply higher percentage of assets parked in stocks, just at a time when trade tensions threaten to derail markets.
Retirement money managers in 14 geographies now allocate 40% of their assets to equities, an 8 percentage-point climb over the past five years, according to a Mercer LLC survey released Tuesday that canvassed government, corporate and mandatory pension funds with almost $5 trillion in assets under management. That compares with about 25% for pension funds in Europe.
10 June 2019
Medical costs continue to rise in Asia: Here’s what you can do about it
Medical costs in Asia are continuing to rise, outpacing general inflation by four times.
According to the Mercer Marsh Benefits 2019 Medical Trends Around the World report, in 2018, Asia saw medical costs increase by an average of 10.4% – compared to the global average of 9.7%. In Malaysia, that figure rises to 13.4%.
Surveying 204 insurers across 59 countries, the report predicted a similar increase for 2019 – an increase of 10.3% (13.6% in Malaysia).
Hervé Balzano, Mercer Marsh Benefits International Leader, observed: “Rising medical costs show no signs of abating. Indeed, according to our research, a majority of insurers globally now believe that in 2020 medical inflation will either remain constant or increase.”
8 October 2018
Mercer acquires talent assessment firm Mettl
Mercer, a global consulting leader in advancing health, wealth and career and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc, has agreed to acquire Mettl, a leader in cloud-based technology and data science-driven talent assessments, based in India, according to a press release.
The acquisition marks Mercer’s entry into the rapidly-growing global talent assessment market and further enhances its position as a trusted strategic talent advisor to companies, according to companies, according to Ilya Bonic, global president of Mercer’s career line business.
One Taikoo Place
979 Kings Road
Quarry Bay, Hong Kong
Phone: +852 3476 3800
Employer Type: Subsidiary
Stock Symbol: MMC
Stock Exchange: NYSE
President & CEO: Martine Ferland
2019 Employees (All Locations): 25,000
New York, NY (HQ)
Offices in 44 countries