Aon plc (NYSE:AON) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 5 of 11

Greg Case: I just would start overall and Eric, I love to add some additional color here. Look, the teams done a phenomenal job. There’s a lot going on out there for our clients in this arena, a lot of complexity as we described before and whether it’s on the interest rate side or the overall — general state of the overall economy and what’s happening, the pension risk transfer as you’ve described. So the team has just done an exceptional job really on a global basis helping our clients kind of navigate across very, very challenging marketplaces. And you saw a drop in the year, you certainly saw a drop in the quarter. Eric, what else would you add to that?

Eric Andersen: Listen, I think the regulatory changes with the global minimum pensions is such a big part of the business in the retirement side. So we saw a lot of growth there, especially out of the U.K. but also decent growth in the U.S. as well. There were some headwinds with the investment business because of AUM being down with the market. But overall, I think we’re really well positioned. And I think, Christa, you mentioned in your opening comments about the pension risk transfer piece. Also, I think we’re an industry leader in that space and really have a great team to do it.

Christa Davies: Look, I’ll just finish with what we’re doing on the Aon side. We’re following the same advice we give clients. And over the last 15 years, we’ve reduced the risk in our pension substantially through steps to close the plants, new entrants, freeze benefit accrual, matchup liabilities and purchased annuities to settle a portion of the pension liabilities. And it’s resulted in much less economic risk and much reduced cash contributions. And so our remaining plans are well funded and hedged. And we’re really managing on a cash basis and you can see that our cash contributions have come down substantially over time, with only $65 million we’re contributing in 2023 in cash, a continued downward trend in cash. And so we’re really excited about the progress we continue to make on our own plans in derisking, as you saw in Q4, with the $300 million of pension benefit obligation coming off the balance sheet and in the decreased cash contributions.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Weston Bloomer with UBS.

Weston Bloomer: Sorry about that. I was on mute. My first question is on the margin. I was hoping you could kind of expand on your margin outlook away from fiduciary income. I guess, would you be able to still expand margins in the core business away from the fiduciary income benefit in 2023? And then where could we potentially see that margin improvement? I would assume lower real estate would be a component of that.

Christa Davies: So Weston, thanks so much for the question. As we think about margin expansion, we think about it holistically over the course of the year at the Aon level. And we’ve grown margins, as I mentioned, 1,120 basis points over the last 12 years or 90 basis points a year for 12 years. And it’s driven by revenue growth a portfolio mix shift as we disproportionately invest in higher revenue growth, higher-margin businesses organically and inorganically and productivity benefit from ABS. So we don’t look at it separately from investment income or frankly, the underlying investments we’re making in the business each and every year to drive long-term growth and innovation for our clients.

Weston Bloomer: Great. My second question, I know you highlighted that you were seeing some signs of economic uncertainty in your prepared remarks. Can you just expand on kind of where you’re seeing those signs of weakness? And then what economic backdrop does your guidance assume?

Page 5 of 11