Willis Tower Watson buys Australian actuarial offices of Russell Investments

Willis Tower Watson has acquired Russell Investments' Australian actuarial offices for an undisclosed sum. The deal sees 22 consultants and around 50 client relationships, and offices in Sydney and Melbourne, transfer to the global professional services firm.

Russell Investments is a global asset management firm, which was last year acquired by TA Associates and Reverence Capital Partners. The firm is active across the globe, with around 1,700 associates in 21 offices, managing around $258.1 billion in assets across the globe.

The acquisition of Russell Investments’ Australian actuarial practice by Willis Towers Watson, sees the transfer of around 22 consultants to the buyer's operation in Australia; in addition, the firm will have access to around 50 client relationships across a gamut of sectors, including corporate, government, master trust and industry funds.

The value of the deal for the Sydney and Melbourne offices was not disclosed. The firm expects the integration of the offices to go relatively smoothly, Brad Jeffrey, Head of Willis Towers Watson’s Retirement business in Australasia, remarks “Our new colleagues are highly experienced and I am confident that culturally, as well as technically, we will quickly bond as a team and continue to deliver excellent services for our expanded client base in both traditional and new retirement solutions.”

Commenting on the deal as a whole, Jeffrey says, “Our new consultants bring new points of view and skill sets in both traditional actuarial work and analytic solutions. We’re also looking forward to sharing many of our ideas and solutions with their clients, including our approaches to assessing retirement adequacy, undertaking innovative modelling, communicating with members and producing retirement income estimates for members, including our new web-based calculation engine and our range of other technology-based tools.”