Aon plc (NYSE:AON) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Eric Andersen: Christa, the only thing I would add, I mentioned it before, is stronger business growth, strong retention, and rollover for our clients in North America and around the world. So, the underpinnings of the business continue to be very strong.

Elyse Greenspan: Okay. That’s helpful. And then as we – one question. I had on reinsurance, right. Obviously to lower volume quarter. And we went through kind of what drove the growth in the fourth quarter. As we think about the Q1 and ’24, right. We’ve heard about the renewals, it January 1 being good, but right obviously, price increases came down, because they were so strong last year. How do we think about reinsurance organic growth in a still strong, but decelerating price increase environment?

Eric Andersen: Maybe I’ll take that one, Greg. Listen, I think there was certainly adequate capital to get the client needs done for the one-one renewals then that’s predominantly Europe and parts of North America, recognizing the Florida and Asia-Pacific tend to be April and June of the year. I would also say, part of the risk capital strategy is how do, we actually deploy reinsurance capability into either commercial risk or new sectors. And so, I’ll just to give you an example. It’s kind of early days, but I spent some time in Dubai at the COP conference, and we spent a lot of time working with various government entities, around how you bring reinsurance structure and capability, to help mitigate the effects of climate – changing climate.

And so, that is core reinsurance data analytics structurally and global access to capital, to a whole new sector of potential clients. And so, I do think it’s certainly the main of the business continues to be serving insurance companies. But there is opportunity outside of that space, to drive new growth for us in what you would consider core reinsurance capability. So that Elyse and you think about FAC, you think about investment banking ILS markets and being able to use that capital for corporates. And so, it’s a very creative group that is well-coordinated with our commercial risk clients in the risk capital framework. And so, we do see opportunities for continued growth in that space over the coming period.

Greg Case: I would add Elyse though, the momentum of this team in the core space, reinsurance, more broadly across risk capital, has been tremendous. And obviously, the quarter-by-quarter view is helpful. But we look at the annual view. If you think about kind of 10% for the year. That’s what’s really unique not saying where we’re going to be next year. Other than mid-single-digit, or greater across the solution lines, which is what we – which we aspire to. And so, I think you can take away you’ve just heard on commercial risk momentum into 2024 and clearly as you look at reinsurance momentum into 2024, for all the reasons that Eric described in the core solution lines, but also in risk capital, don’t lose this, this risk capital orientation is a big deal.

It is meaningful in terms of sort of what we’re doing the same on the human capital side. The connectivity across reinsurance or commercial risk creates better solutions, Eric described a couple of them already. And so for us, we feel good about the momentum going into 2004 based on the work we did the groundwork we laid in ’23, on risk capital and human capital.

Elyse Greenspan: Thanks. And then one more the savings. I know, Christa, you reaffirmed on the $100 million for ’24, it doesn’t sound like there were any that came through in the fourth quarter. So. I guess we’ll start seeing the savings flow through in the first-quarter, is that correct?

Christa Davies: That’s correct. Elyse.

Elyse Greenspan: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question is from the line of Meyer Shields with KBW. Please proceed with your question.

Meyer Shields: Thanks. So, Greg. And because we’ve been very consistent about the impact of a slow M&A and IPO market on organic growth. Wanted to take a step back and say. How do you think about the fact that organic growth, is so dependent on one segment of the marketplace that you ended-up with this differentiated results relative to peers. Is that a concern?

Greg Case: Well, if you step back, Meyer. You can step-back and say, look at the overall performance of the firm year-over-year in essence we are up to the year 6%, last year, 7% this year across the firm. We think about commercial risk. Again, we are 4% in Q4 last year was 4% in Q4 this year, even against a substantial headwind we described. And what we want you to understand in the context of that, is imagine all the things sort of behind that created that momentum in Q4 and our 2024 in the commercial risk space. We’ve overcome that and maintain where we were last year. So, we’re very optimistic about the momentum in 2024. This category is substantial in M&A and we love it, and we are disproportionately good at it. We are unbelievably good at it from a client leadership standpoint.

And so, we don’t feel bad about that in the least. We love it, and we’re going to double down on it. But we also continue to build-out other platforms. This year given us the opportunity to really think that through and really leverage the risk capital orientation. I would highlight I mentioned in my comments, the Property Symposium. We got a 1,000 clients and markets in the room and we bring up the property risk analyzer. And this is really a function of reinsurance, and commercial risk analytics and the power of that in the minds of a client were substantial. And so, now we’ve got a suite of capabilities that are going to contribute to the commercial risk and the reinsurance, as we head into 2024. So from our standpoint, what you really like you to take away and certainly our feeling and commitment is mid-single-digit or greater, the translation into OI margin improvement and as Christa described the translation into double-digit free cash flow growth.