The press release marking the spinning off of Mercury Private Equity, the private equity arm of Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM), very nearly neglects to mention that Mercury is now a separate entity.

Instead, it talks up its new private equity fund of funds offering, the new appetite among investors for private equity and, almost as an afterthought, mentions that it will also offer funds 'managed by the existing Mercury Private Equity team through a new vehicle owned by the management team'.