Mercury makes two new hires

Mercury Capital Advisors, the global placement agent that was set up in 2009 by former members of Merrill Lynch Private Equity Funds Group, has made a pair of additions to its staff. According to managing partner Alan Pardee, the firm has hired a new principal in San Francisco focused on real estate and a new vice president in London focused on private equity. 

Paul Tam has joined Mercury as a principal and will be working on the distribution side of the business, focused on real estate relationships with limited partners. He joined the firm earlier this month and works out of its new San Francisco office, which was opened specifically for him. 

Tam has worked in fundraising roles for various firms since 2000. Most recently, he was at Brookfield Asset Management, where he was a senior vice president in charge of client relationships in the Asia-Pacific region, working out of the firm’s Hong Kong office. Prior to joining Brookfield in 2009, Tam was a managing director at Bear Stearns and a partner at Crane Capital Associates, which Bear Stearns acquired in 2007. Prior to joining Crane, he raised capital for Capstone from 2000 to 2003. 

In addition, Timothy Lee has joined Mercury’s London office as vice president. Having joined the firm last week, he is responsible for raising capital in France and northern Europe. Although his focus will be on private equity funds, Lee also will be involved in raising capital for real estate, infrastructure venture capital, distressed, mezzanine and secondary investment managers. In addition, he will have a role in sourcing GPs for Mercury. 

Lee joins Mercury from Zouk Capital in London, where he was head of investor relations and business development. Prior to that, he was with Jefferies Fund Placement Group in London from 2008 to 2012 as a placement agent focused on private equity, real estate and infrastructure funds. 

Mercury has been steadily adding to its team over the past couple of years. In March 2012, it was announced that the firm had hired three professionals for its New York team. Before that, in October 2011, it was revealed that Mercury had hired seven professionals to work out of its Boston, New York and London offices.