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Conventional advice may be harmful if you’ve accumulated significant wealth. Avoiding critical mistakes in asset allocation and family communication, as well as working with a trusted advisor in a collaborative environment are key best practices for ultra-high net worth individuals to pursue. This article provides some of the most common erro...

Impact investing has become a popular topic of discussion, not only with the mainstream media but also with mainstream investors. Yet while impact investing has entered the mainstream mindset, many investors with the enthusiasm and means to engage meaningfully in impact investing lack the informational resources to do so. For most investors today, ...

In this paper, Cara Lafond explores family office characteristics and makes recommendations for asset allocation strategies that ensure growth of assets and preservation of capital and purchasing power, two goals that have been identified as important to most family offices. She emphasizes the importance of downtown risk mitigation and argues that ...

Mercer’s Research Perspectives covers a wide variety of investment topics. This edition includes a discussion on liquid alternative investments, actively managed global small-cap equities, features our new study on climate change, introduces the Chinese bond market and closes with an interview with Stefan Hepp who joined Mercer through the ac...

Hedge Funds in the Current Environment: Mercer believes that now is a good time to consider (or reconsider) hedge fund investing. This article explores the case for hedge funds with a focus on the current environment. Mercer also offers some thoughts on choosing the best hedge funds and how to build robust portfolios.

While once considered “mysterious,” characterized by investor misconceptions and thoroughly debated after the global financial crisis, hedge funds at their core remain a fairly simple structure with a flexible investment mandate. This white paper debunks myths about hedge funds and explains how they generate profits.

Chief Investment Officer David Donabedian recaps the first half of 2015 and provides an outlook for economic activity and financial markets in the third quarter of the year.

An approach to investing called RSI—“responsible, sustainable and impact investing”—seeks to create both financial return as well as positive social or environmental impacts that are actively measured. This white paper explains how families can connect philanthropic vision with investing strategy through RSI.

Impact investing has taken many forms over the years. In its earliest form, religious pension plans used negative screening to avoid sin stocks. Later, environmental and political activists would use shareholder proposals to demand that companies reduce pollution or otherwise improve their operations. Today, Wall Street and investors of all types a...

We face tremendous challenges today. The forces of globalization and modern consumerism are straining our planet’s resources. As production efficiencies increase through technology and human experience, prices decline thus enabling consumption of more goods by more people worldwide. In developing countries, as people migrate from farms to cit...

In a year of notable financial developments, perhaps the most far-reaching and visible of this group is the sharp decline in oil prices in the second half of 2014. Crude has dropped more than 50% since June and is now trading below $50 per barrel. This precipitous decline stands in contrast to a prior four years of relative price stabil...

Fostering strong advisory relationships with younger investors (often our clients' children) is a particular focus at Federal Street Advisors. In this article, we are pleased to share our approach to helping the next generation address their unique financial needs and become experienced investors.As baby boomers enter retirement, young adults h...

This white paper addresses one of today’s most discussed and divisive topics involving investors, investment advisers and brokers: What legal standard of responsibility and conduct should apply to firms and individuals who provide advisory services to investors?This question is receiving a lot of attention from the SEC, the Department of Labo...

As a matter of Federalism, Congress cannot require the several states to adopt laws regulating investment advisers, but it can prohibit “small” investment advisers from registering with the SEC unless they have a sufficient amount of RAUM. For the last two decades, Congress has been slowly but continuously removing “small” i...

Trusts have gained enormous popularity over the last 20 years. The top 1 percent of the wealthy have 38 percent of their investment assets in trusts, and the next 4 percent have 43 percent of their investment assets in trusts.1 This powerful trend is largely due to the fact that the modern trust can provide a family not only with powerful tax and a...