Mercer Advisors, the Denver-based registered investment advisor with more than $100 billion in client assets, said Tuesday that it has finished deploying Aspen Investing, a proprietary platform that embeds centralized portfolio management directly into the firm's advisory workflow. The move effectively makes Aspen Investing the investment engine for the firm's existing Aspen technology system, which already coordinates financial planning, tax preparation, and estate administration.
The platform, developed in partnership with Orion, a wealth technology provider, is designed to give Mercer's advisors access to customized investment strategies at scale while reducing portfolio costs through negotiated relationships with asset managers. The firm did not disclose specific fee levels or projected savings, but executives said the system is intended to deliver institutional-grade portfolio construction to individual clients.
Direct indexing and tax management
A key feature of Aspen Investing is in-house direct indexing, where clients own the individual securities of an index rather than a mutual fund or ETF. Mercer's investment team, led by Chief Investment Officer Donald Calcagni and comprising more than 125 professionals, will manage these portfolios. The platform runs tax-loss harvesting on a daily basis and allows advisors to set a capital gains tax budget for each client. It can also accommodate low-basis legacy holdings, a feature aimed at clients with large unrealized gains and at advisory firms that join Mercer through acquisition.
The platform relies on unified managed accounts, or UMAs, which consolidate strategies from multiple third-party managers into a single account and streamline reporting. Advisors can align portfolios with a client's financial plan, apply security-level exclusions or additions, incorporate values-based screens, and include alternative investments. The system also supports proposal generation, advanced reporting with proprietary business intelligence, and enhanced risk monitoring.
“Aspen Investing was designed to give every client access to the kind of portfolio management typically reserved for endowments and large institutions, delivered in a way that reflects their specific goals and circumstances,” Calcagni said in a statement. Mercer President Daniel Gourvitch added that the firm has “moved beyond models to create truly customized investment programs, built to reflect each family's unique financial context and preferences.”
Multi-year platform buildout
Aspen Investing is the latest addition to a platform Mercer has been expanding since 2024. In June 2024, the firm introduced Aspen Partners, a private markets offering built with Opto Investments, which provides qualified clients access to private equity, venture capital, private credit, real estate, and infrastructure strategies. That offering is now integrated into Aspen Investing. In July 2025, Mercer released the second generation of its AI-enabled Aspen platform, which uses a knowledge graph to link clients, advisory teams, and services. The firm said at the time that more than 1,100 wealth professionals were using the system.
The platform works with multiple custodians, including Charles Schwab, Fidelity Investments, and Raymond James. Avantos, an AI-native operating system for financial services firms, supported its development. Natalie Wolfsen, chief executive of Orion, called the platform “a case study in personalization where every family can have a portfolio tailored to their unique goals, without sacrificing efficiency.”
Mercer's push into direct indexing comes as the strategy gains mainstream traction. According to Cerulli Associates, direct indexing assets reached $1.2 trillion at the end of 2025. However, a recent FTSE Russell survey of advisors found that client education and advisor knowledge remain barriers to wider adoption. The firm also recently tapped the syndicated loan market to refinance $1.9 billion of private debt, swapping it for a seven-year term loan and revolving credit facility, as reported by Mercer's refinancing move.
