By Barry Cohen
With the completion of the merger of Towers Perrin and Watson Wyatt to form Towers Watson on 1 January 2010, the new publicly listed company has emerged as undoubtedly one of the biggest players in the worldwide investment consultancy industry. Combining their forces has created an equity value of $3.5 billion for the new entity and a global staff of 14,000 associates.
Damien Loveday and Sasha Temple-Jones
While both parties brought their own specific advantages to the negotiating table, Watson Wyatt delivered the dedicated hedge fund advisory business to the partnership. As Damien Loveday, global head of hedge fund manager research and a veteran of Watson Wyatt, explains: "One of the reasons for the merger was that we had almost no overlap in research teams geographically. But Watson Wyatt also had a much bigger presence in investment advisory work, especially in terms of...