Mercury bolsters team

In addition to hiring Rennyson Merritt as a partner in Boston, the Merrill Lynch private placement spinout has added six other professionals to its team recently.

Global placement agent Mercury Capital Advisors has added seven professionals to its teams in Boston, New York and London.

Rennyson Merritt joins the firm’s Boston office as a partner, focusing on the distribution of private equity funds and investments. Prior to Mercury, he was a director at AEW Capital Management, where he also held positions as chief operating officer and director of marketing and investor relations, responsible for distribution of the firm’s domestic and international core real estate funds as well as REIT strategies. Merritt began his career with Morgan Stanley’s real estate investment banking group.

Kristen Belfi joins Mercury as a principal in the New York office and focuses on the origination efforts. Previously, she was a director and head of client services at Mount Kellett Capital Partners. Prior to that, she was part of the investor relations group at Tudor Investment Corporation.

Over the summer, Mercury also hired Robert Carroll as an associate in the London office, Aude Lamarche and Meena Wojcik as associates in the New York office and Andrew Osofsky and Shaina Li as analysts in New York.

Established in 2009 after spinning out of Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Mercury raises fund for private equity, real estate, infrastructure, venture capital, distressed, mezzanine and secondary managers. It also advises in areas including co-investment, direct deal placement, secondary sales and placement of PIPEs.