Hello everyone and welcome to At Bairns. I'm Andy Surwer and welcome to our guest, Alalu Aganga, Chief U.S. Investment Officer at Mercer.

Alalu, nice to see you.

Thank you for having me, Andy.

So why don't we start off by you telling us a little bit about Mercer and specifically your role there?

I'm going to give a bit of a history lesson because I like those.

Good.

So Mercer was founded in 1945 by William M. Mercer, founded in Canada, really focused on actuarial and benefits.

In 1959, got acquired by Marsh McLennan. So Marsh McClannon has two lines

of businesses, risk, then insurance services, and then consulting, just broader consulting, which is where Mercer is.

So at Mercer, we have health, wealth, career, I'm in the investments business.

We have, call it, maybe $420 billion under management,

from a discretionary standpoint, $16 trillion under advisement.

And our clients range from defined benefit pension plans,

defined contribution, not-for-profit, wealth management, insurance,

as well, healthcare. And our focus really is on delivering on the investment promise that we

make to our clients. So either to retire with dignity, like I say, or really growing the pools

for these clients to have the most impact in society.

Right, so part of Marsh, which is a publicly traded company, and then you have money directly

under management as well as advising clients with their own portfolios, right?

Correct.

Okay. And so specifically, Ola-LU, what is your purview?

Are you an asset allocator?

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