Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (NYSE:MMC) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And so, there is work on liability management, interest rate risk management, deposit management, the value of the branch network. Not to mention tuning ourselves up for the new tech and AI capabilities that might be helpful. But yes, we have seen that be a driver of some business already and we continue to expect that over the coming quarters.

John Q. Doyle: Thanks, Nick. — Yes. Go ahead.

Weston Bloomer: And you highlighted that 35% to 40% of growth was driven within financial services. Have you given a real thumb, I’d always assume that financial services was the largest subsector within OI? Just want to confirm that that’s the case or if you’ve given a breakout there?

Nick Studer: We don’t give a breakout. I mean, it’s one of our strongest practices. It’s also one of the largest sectors in management consulting globally. But it’s, yes, one of our strength areas.

Weston Bloomer: Got it. And then just one more within Guy Carpenter. Can you talk about the dynamic versus treaty versus FAC placements? In the kind of the growth outlook that you’re seeing there. Are there more opportunities within FAC given just changes in buying or buyer behaviour?

John Q. Doyle: Thanks, Weston. We’ve seen good growth in fact over the course of the last couple of years, both seated and client driven FAC, Oliver Wyman and excuse me, Guy Carpenter and Marsh work quite closely together to capture that opportunity and to make sure we’re bringing all the available capital all over the world to our clients to help again navigate what’s been a very, very difficult marketplace. So, the growth has been quite strong in both FAC and in treaty as well. Thank you, Weston. Operator, next question please?

Operator: Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Paul Newsome with Piper Sandler.

Paul Newsome : Good morning. Thanks for squeeze me in. I didn’t think I heard much of anything about the M&A environment. I think we’re all sort of waiting things to change their versus the –because of the interest rate environment changes, but any updated thoughts on M&A and how you see new environment there for yourself?

John Q. Doyle: Yes, sure, Paul. We remain quite active in the market and have a solid pipeline. We’re, of course, we continue to look for businesses with solid growth fundamentals that are well led and terrific talent and not only will they make us better, but hopefully we think we can make them better as well. I’d say the pipeline is pretty broad from both an RAS and consulting perspective. We of course did a big deal in Mercer investments on the 1st of April, so we’re excited about that in Australia. We were just in Australia as a team. So excited about the acquisition there and what it means to our investments. The market obviously the number of deals was down. Some buyers, primarily financial buyers are sitting it out at the moment, but strategic players are still quite active.

And what I would say, demand is strong. For higher quality businesses that are out there. And so, while obviously the cost of capital has increased quite a bit. Priced assets are still trading at a premium. So, but again, we’re excited about what’s possible there. We’ve worked very hard and have built a very strong reputation as a buyer in the market and that creates a lot of opportunity for us. Do you have a follow-up, Paul?

Paul Newsome : Yes. As a follow-up, could you talk about the divestitures that you’ve made and how important or maybe not important they are to the margin improvements over the last quarter or last year. I mean, I know they’re small in size.