Aon plc (AON) August 2026 Conference Transcript

Good morning, and thank you for holding. Welcome to Aon PLC's conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode until the question and answer session of today's conference. During today's Q&A session, if you would like to register a question, you may do so by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. I would also like to remind all parties that this call is being recorded. If anyone has an objection, you may disconnect Nectar Line at this time. It is important to note that some of the comments in today's call may constitute certain statements that are forward-looking in nature, as defined by the Private Securities Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from historical results or those anticipated. For information concerning these risk factors, please refer to our earnings release for this quarter and our most recent quarterly or annual SEC filing, all of which are available on our website. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Greg Case, President and CEO of AonPLC. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Greg Case, President and CEO of AonPLC Thank you, Donna, and good morning, everyone, and I appreciate you joining us today. I'm here with Nadine Varani, Interim CFO, Andy Marcel, Deputy CEO and Responsibility for Risk Capital and Human Capital, and Mike Zakhar, Chairman and CEO of USI. For reference, we publish slides on our website that supplement our discussion. Today marks an important milestone for Aon and for the standard of client value and client service available to U.S. middle market companies. As risk and complexity continues to rise, middle market companies are not always offered the breadth and depth of solutions available to the large and enterprise market. Nor do they have access to a full range of capital sources to fund world-class solutions. This is why we are very excited to announce that we've entered a definitive agreement to acquire USI, a leading U.S. middle market broker with deep expertise and specialized solutions for property and casualty, employee benefits, personal risk, and retirement. The addition of USI builds on our successful acquisition of NFP. Together, USI, NFP, and Aon established the premier U.S. middle market platform. The combined platform extends the reach of Aon's differentiated capabilities across the middle market, which has already proven highly impactful to the client leadership of NFP. USI also substantially expands our direct access to ENS and specialty segments and deepens our capability advantage by needfully expanding U.S. middle market flow insight in our ABS analytics engine. Post-close, we're very excited to bring a new standard of capability and service to the middle market through our exceptional client leaders. The purchase price of $17 billion and $16.7 billion net of tax attributes represents a 14.5 times synergized EBITDA multiple, and we expect the transaction to be EPS accretive beginning in 2028. The DIN will provide more financial details on the transaction in a few minutes, but I want to emphasize that USI enabled us to create significant value across our entire middle market platform that we could not otherwise capture. This is a truly unique asset that strengthens our capabilities and areas we've historically been underrepresented and accelerates growth across Aon. But before we discuss the strategic rationale in more detail, it's my privilege to introduce Mike Sikhar. We long admired the exceptional business Mike and the USI team have built, and in every conversation we've had with Mike, our teams walk away more energized about what we will accomplish together. I'm also pleased to note that following the transaction close, Mike will be appointed President of Aon and Global CEO of Middle Market, leading Aon's combined platform with a team of leaders from USI, NFP, and Aon.

Welcome, Mike. Thank you so much, Greg. I am thrilled to be here today. This combination represents the natural next step for USI to capture the significant and growing opportunity in the U.S. middle market, positioning us to accelerate our momentum as part of the Aon United platform. We already share a common culture, a client-first mindset, and a belief that the best results come from operating as one team. Aon means one in Gaelic, and similarly, USI emphasizes the USI-1 advantage. These similarities are a strong foundation, but what excites me most is what Aon enables us to do next. Together, we will accelerate growth, broaden our capabilities, and harness the combined strengths of an integrated platform. I'm excited to lead what will be the premier U.S. middle market platform delivering greater value for our clients by setting a new standard of content, capabilities, and service.

Thank you, Mike. We'll start with a little background. For Aon overall, it's important to understand that this combination builds on our already strong momentum across global Aon, grounded in the strategies we've executed for nearly two decades. We've taken deliberate steps to build what we believe is the industry's most differentiated Our context advantage is underpinned by three foundational pillars. First, our cultural advantage. Aon United is the product of more than 15 years building a truly connected global firm that enables colleagues to bring the full breadth of Aon to every client relationship. Second, our organizational advantage. We fundamentally reshaped Aon, putting clients in the center of everything we do. We integrated our risk capital and human capital capabilities across the firm, powered by our Aon Business Services operating and technology engine. This structure allows our colleagues to serve clients with greater connectivity, consistency, and impact. And third, our data and analytics advantage provides us with a platform uniquely capable of applying AI at scale. Proprietary data and AI-enabled analytics equip our colleagues with greater tools and capabilities, converting insight into actionable solutions to help clients make better decisions. Importantly, these three advantages reinforce one another. Enabling Aon to create innovative solutions, access new sources of capital, and expand the universe of insurable risk for our clients. That is the power of our connected in context advantage. Increasing what we can do for clients, expanding our relevance, reducing the protection gap, and growing the overall placement opportunity. The strength of this model is demonstrating our performance through the 3x3 plan. We're winning and retaining more clients, innovating faster, and operating more efficiently. Together, these outcomes are driving sustained through-the-cycle performance. And we are just getting started. Looking ahead, we see two significant opportunities to reinforce our context advantage. And USI uniquely unlocks both. The first is to advance our leading platform in the large and growing U.S. middle market. And the second is to expand direct access to the fast-growing E&S sector, where AM today has a limited footprint. Consider that the middle market opportunity represents approximately one-third of the U.S. commercial P&C market with more than 200,000 companies in the U.S. employing roughly 48 million people. The addressable market is over 40 billion. These companies are a critical engine of the economy and there is greater opportunity to meet their increasingly complex needs. The same interconnected forces of trade, technology, weather, and workforce that are reshaping the risk and people environment for our largest clients are creating even greater volatility in the middle market but when compared to our larger organizations middle market companies have less access to the analytics insights and capital solutions required to address these challenges and build resilience that creates a meaningful protection gap between the complexity of the decisions these clients must make the risks they're exposed to and the solutions available to address their needs. Aon is changing that. Our investments in technology and talent enhanced by proprietary data and analytics enable our firm to bring capabilities traditionally available at the largest end of the market to middle market clients in a way that's tailored, timely, and relevant. And over the last two years with NFP, we have seen tangible results of applying our context advantage in the middle market, which reinforces our conviction that we are well positioned to accelerate our momentum with the addition of USI. I would add the opportunity is equally compelling in the access and surplus segment which represents 26 percent of U.S. commercial PNC premiums and is growing at an 18 percent compound annual rate fueled by the need for increasingly specialized risk solutions. Today we're only able to provide clients with limited direct access to ENFs and wholesale distribution largely through our Tritalis specialty business. Turning to USI, this addition advances our platform and brings a unified culture and track record of growth, highly developed producer organization, and demonstrated leadership. With approximately $11 billion of P&C premium placements and 2,800 producers, USI builds on the middle market foundation we've strengthened through NFP. Together, Aon, NFP, and USI will establish the premier $6.5 billion US middle market platform. With USI, we'll have deeper direct access to the NS segment and wholesale distribution. Both the middle market and wholesale channels are increasingly sources of new client relationships, emerging risks, and additional data and insights. In recent years, USI has invested significantly in its people, platform, and technology, which positions the business for accelerated growth going forward. Building on the success of NFP, USI allows us to apply our institutional knowledge across a larger platform, bringing the best of Aon to more clients and more producers, while extending USI's differentiated capabilities into a broader Aon platform. And importantly, we have a clear line of sight and a proven action plan to deliver significant revenue and cost synergies that we believe will drive long-term value creation across our combined Aon, NFP, and USI platform. We've been rigorous in identifying where we can accelerate growth to greater producer productivity and retention, broader cross-selling across risk capital and human capital, and expanded access to the ENS segment. We also see meaningful opportunities to improve efficiency by extending ABS across the combined platform, simplifying technology and operations, and leveraging our shared services infrastructure. These are tangible, identified opportunities grounded in the capabilities we have today and key learning from successful integration of NFP and enabled by this transaction. They give us confidence in the growth outlook and long-term value creation potential of the combined platform, and we look forward to providing updates on our progress and performance against the commitments we've outlined today. With that overview, let me turn the call over to Nadim to discuss the transaction terms and financials. Nadim, over to you.

Thank you, Greg. I'm truly honored to be here for this landmark moment discussing a transaction that says so much about the strength of Aon's strategy and the opportunity ahead. I've been leading Aon's corporate planning and solution line finance team for almost two years now, and I'm looking forward to playing a key role in helping bring this transaction to life and delivering its full potential. This is a transaction that accelerates our U.S. middle market strategy and unlocks the full capabilities of our platform. For our clients, over the next few minutes, I'm going to share some key details on the transaction structure and the significant value creation opportunity this represents. There are three points I would like you to take away from this. The unique asset premier U.S. middle market platform and materially expands Aon's direct access to the E&S sector. We are strongly positioned to capture significant value through this transaction. We've done extensive work and identified $395 million in net EBITDA synergies with defined work streams that we are ready to execute upon from day one. As a result of the expansion in our total addressable market and the meaningful synergies we have identified, we have high conviction that this is an acquisition that will generate compelling long-term shareholder value. An overview of the terms of the agreement. Aon will acquire USI in an all-cash transaction for approximately $17 billion or $16.7 billion net of revenue as an attractive valuation for this year. We plan to fund the acquisition with new debt, raise the cost of a range of maturities, and expect the transaction to close in Q426, subject to regulatory approval. Our confidence in execution is grounded in the context advantage, along with the strong middle market foundation that we have built that has led to stronger new business generation. Let me now take you through the value creation opportunity in more detail. Overall, we have identified $395 million in adjusted EBITDA impacts from revenue and cost synergies on the middle market platform. Starting with the revenue synergies, we've identified 23 individual work streams that that we believe will generate $321 million in net revenue synergies. This translates to $115 million EBITDA contribution, or 29% of our EBITDA synergies. Specifically, we see a meaningful opportunity across three primary areas, for our producers and client leaders. As Greg noted, we expect to unlock greater producer productivity, including embedding Aon's tools and capabilities across the expanded platform. and human customers. At the same time, we will implement best practices to increase producer retention, building on our proven playbook. The second area of opportunity is through client retention and through Aon, NFP and USI's capabilities, the client base will have access to a broader set of solutions and channels. For example, we will optimize premium placement by leveraging Aon's existing retail network along USI's own wholesale capability. This allows us to optimize across the expanded platform and capture more opportunities, we could not fully increase distribution opportunities. Our commitment to Totalis Specials are the capabilities of NFP and Aon. Using this platform, we will further extend the availability of relevant USIs to market partners and expand access into specialty risk markets through our London and Bermuda. Now let me move to the cost side. $280 million in synergies, or 71% are our EBITDA synergy target through 10 identified work streams. You've heard us talk about the proven capabilities of AVS, and we will leverage these to enhance service levels while reducing cost to serve and the administrative load on our efficiencies and the benefits of integrating technology systems, simplifying and modernizing the technology stack, and leveraging our AI capabilities to drive productivity across the platform and lower the cost base. Underpinned by the scale of ABS and our disciplined expense management, we will improve the client experience and we have a high degree of confidence in our ability to achieve these synergy targets. As the integration proceeds, we will provide regular updates on our progress at USI. At one point regarding implications for financial guidance on the acquisition, we will provide further updates. We are pursuing this opportunity while maintaining our financial strength and disciplined capital allocation. We expect to maintain our current credit ratings and to return to our leverage objective of 2.8 of the 24 months after our balanced capital allocation model remain the same. De-leveraging our balance sheet, funding a stable and growing dividend, investing in attractive growth opportunities, and returning excess. Consistent with this strategy, this transaction is a significant strategic one of the markets context advantage we deliver to our clients. The rationale is clear and compelling, allowing us to expand future growth, margin potential, EPS accretion, and free cash flow generation over time. Most importantly, we believe this transaction is a unique opportunity that will allow us to deliver more for our clients. I'll pass you back to Greg for a few closing thoughts before.

Thank you, it in. This is a landmark moment for Aon, establishing the premier U.S. middle market platform, enabling us to deliver better choice, superior solutions, and greater value for our clients. Importantly, we believe the advantages of our platform will expand over time as we bring more innovative capabilities to clients, create greater opportunities for colleagues, and generate long-term value for our shareholders. Now Mike, the Din, Andy, and I will be happy to take your questions. Back to you, Donna.

Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad at this time. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys. We do ask you please limit yourself to one question and then re-queue for any additional questions. Again, that is star one to register a question at this time. Today's first question is coming from David Mortenden of Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks. Good morning. Greg, a few times you had mentioned that the deal is expected to accelerate the organic growth of Aon? Maybe you could just elaborate on how much. Is that something that can break you guys out of the mid-single-digit or greater organic growth range, and where do you see that coming from mostly? Because it looks like USI actually grew 4% in 2025, which was below Aon. Thank you.

David, love the question. It's exactly the perfect one to start with because fundamentally, fundamentally, this is about serving clients more effectively and serving more of them. This is about organic growth and look for our opportunities and organic growth to continue to increase over time. Again, step back and think about Aon before we get to the premier middle market platform we're talking about. We have with the three by three and all the capability we built, just continue to double down on, you know, our ability to bring better solutions, help clients make better decisions. You've seen it show up in our growth rates. By the way, we had, you know, two of the last four quarters, we had, you know, 10% organic growth in the U.S. theater and commercial risk, for example. This, the three-by-three, the capability behind it is working unbelievably well. It creates great, great opportunity and leverage for us, which we're now bringing with the bringer platform to the middle market. So step back. With USI, with NMP, with the capability we've got in Aon, when we talk about mid-single or greater, or greater, this is the opportunity for greater, right? In the end, we're going to continue to sort of build and create here, and that combination is giving us great expectations around overall organic growth. So it's not about, you know, NFP by itself or USI by itself or ANN by itself, but that platform, and that will be a creative to what will be a more creative overall Aon. And that's – we've proven it, David. We've seen it inside of NFP, bringing that advantage in a very specific way. Now we're scaling it to more clients in a way that we have high confidence will be compelling. But listen, hearing for me is interesting. If you don't mind, I think getting Mike just to talk about this, we've talked about this at length in terms of sort of what this might mean and the opportunity in the middle market. And then even getting Andy to chime in on this ENS opportunity because that's a net new piece, right? That's something that hasn't been in the game before. Now we're talking about in the game. And it really does provide clarity as well on the overall synergy chapter. But Mike, your thoughts on organic growth?

Yeah, Greg, I appreciate that. and a few thoughts and comments i've spent my career in this industry and i understand and appreciate the true power of the relationships our producers and client team members have with clients and perspective historically in the middle market in particular a relationship has been always important and it's been relationship driven but relationship alone relations advantages great additional structure of benefits and leveraging the power of data analytics brings

analytics today on and a prime example of this is that potential that's going to come as part of the team members can now leverage and deliver think about it david that's that's literally the abs analytics in that platform package tailored for the middle market sort of in the in the in the main so that's your classic middle market opportunity that you know mike's talking about a game-changing opportunity for and we have a net new area that we haven't been playing in and that's the ens opportunity and can you talk about that too and could have an additional piece on the organic growth program, ENFs, about organic growth. Organic growth unlocks the value for clients. And just to be clear, it's the shareholder value key. We grow organically, you know, it unlocks everything. And what I hope you pick up here is very specific understanding of what it's going to take. We know the answer, now scaling. Andy just described opportunity that doesn't require new clients. It requires us doing more with existing clients. That's a beautiful thing. By the way, we'll get new clients as well. We're going to get both. But, you know, it really is, and opens the door to kind of the synergy idea. It all hinges back on the synergies and the opportunity to capture the revenue and cost synergies. And just, you know, a comment from the den on literally how we have line of sight into the synergies would drive exactly what Mike and...

Let me just add to those comments. So, you know, if I echo what we're really excited about, $21 million, think about this.

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Elise Greenspan of Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks. You know, my first question, I guess, is on the financing, on the transaction, recognize that, you know, you guys have a plan to take up the leverage, right, and then bring it back down over the next couple years. Is there any way, you know, once we see how this plays out, as we get closer to close, that you guys would consider an equity component to this transaction? Are you fully committed, you know, to funding this all via debt?

At least I'll start an overview, and then when you talk specifically about some of the mechanics that's more helpful for you. Listen, we are very pleased to sort of take this on the balance sheet and literally preserve the shareholder value creation, which we believe is going to be quite substantial for our existing shareholders. Very much pleased to be able to do that and fully ready to attack this opportunity in that way. You saw us do it exactly the same way with NFP, where we moved up and then we moved down in a very short period of time, faster than we even thought we would. Look for us to sort of push that in any way we possibly can as we drive this, but we're very comfortable with this structure that's going to drive a greater shareholder valuation for our shareholders.

Yeah. I'll add that we're pursuing this opportunity from a position of strength, and we will maintain our disciplined capital out before. And, you know, as part of this transaction, we'll maintain our current credit rating, and we expect to return to our leverage objective in approximately 24 months of close. So, I just want to reiterate that our principal case-run model remained unchanged, deleveraging our balance sheet, funding a stable and growing dividend, and returning excess cash.

And then my follow-up question, you know, there's some adjustments to revenue. I think it's around $60 million, which I'm assuming is revenue disenergious here. How did you guys, you know, come up with that as being, you know, the right figure when bringing it together, right, to, you know, sizable organizations?

Again, we took a very conservative view going back to the baseline core on literally what we're going to build off of as we thought about the synergies. And so these adjustments reflect literally making sure we're all counting revenue in exactly the same way, so we're being very careful about that, and we're very stringent on how we build that baseline. And then in addition to making sure we build in what is always natural leakage that occurs, but I would say if you think about this in the NFP case, our NFP colleagues working together, were tremendous. You know, we had incredible experience, producer retention, exceptionally strong, you know, stronger post-deal than pre-deal. That's unheard of. The overall leadership, you know, Doug Hammond and Mike Goldman, you know, all these guys were phenomenal in terms of what we were trying to do with our team. Now we've got a next generation of leaders stepping up in the NFP world to work with Mike. You know, we're incredibly excited about what that's going to look like. So we've seen this movie multiple times and certainly saw it in NFP, learned a lot and feel very, very good about our ability to sort of maintain the platform as we then strengthen the platform.

Thank you. The next question is coming from Pablo Cingzon of JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. So one element of your disclosure today was retention costs. And I don't think you disclosed that when you announced NFT. I guess the question is, can you talk about your, and Greg, I think you touched this already a bit, but your retention experience with NFP and your expectation for USI, the departure of producers is always a key risk for Garcia M&A, and I was wondering how you're thinking about managing that risk.

If organic growth was a perfect kickoff question, our retention about our people and our colleagues is right there with it. This is really the driver. It really is all about our colleagues. And I think I'd start broad, but I think, again, you're getting some comments from my colleagues here will be quite helpful. Look, principle number one that guides the work across Global Aeon, guides the work at NFP, is now guiding the work with USI and the platform, the Smittle Market Platform we're creating, is a set of principles around this is our talent first, investing in, reinforcing, developing our talent. And then as Mike described, this isn't talent, which is primary, absolutely primary. It isn't talent. Stop. It's talent with greater content, capability to sit across the table and wow a client. We put that package together. That's really what matters more than anything else. And that's where we've invested so heavily to enrich our ability to help clients make better decisions through our colleagues. And again, talk's cheap. You've seen this. Our retention, all-time high. Producer retention, as I described before an NFP, if you want a specific example, exceptionally strong. I can go on and on to sentiment. If you think about where it is at Aon, even more so at USI, but Aon and NFP, exceptionally strong. So what I'm trying to highlight here before we get to the investment in the particular situation here, which Nadine can talk about, I want you to get a sense for how high a priority this is for us as we think about our ability to serve clients more effectively. And then also be clear, we've done this. We're doing this. This is, again, about the concept here. It's scaling proven concepts in a way that benefit clients more effectively. That's the whole program. And we have it on the organic growth plan, and we absolutely have it on the retention plan. Obviously, we're going to invest resources directly behind that in overall retention and maybe then offer some thoughts here in terms of the broad view of what we've got going on.

Yeah, in addition to what Rick said, you know, I would say that we've shared that have contemplated up to $400 million specifically. We've devised a series of programs and structures that will put in. This includes success and learnings from ours. We're really encouraged by the best, you know, with increasing.

And here's one quick comment, maybe, Mike, from you around this whole talent piece, because this is a place you and I spent a huge amount of time talking about as we thought about this middle market platform and what it might mean for our clients. Yeah, thanks, Greg.

I mean, this is a net plus for our people unquestionably, and I believe as well for the same plus more, right? On a same basis, they...

Thank you. The next question is coming from Mayor Sales of KBW. Please go ahead.

Thanks so much. I'm just going back to the E&S because I'm trying to understand it. Is the plan for the increased utilization of E&S on Aon retail brokerage or is Aon sort of entering the or re-entering the third-party wholesale world again?

So let's take a step back, Meyer. You're asking about this piece, which is straight net new. We have access now to this overall market. we're talking about expanding the access. Again, primary here is matching capital with client needs, reduced volatility. That's really what's going on. Greater access to do that. But Andy, how would you describe sort of the steps we're taking to make that happen?

I think in the first case, you know, I used to acknowledge about this. You know, when we think about the point that I think should know.

Thank you. The next question is coming from Bob Huang of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Hi. Maybe I'd like to kind of share your thoughts a little bit on the technology integration is that something you can unpack a little bit more if we think about usi right like the usi one uh system it essentially is from our perspective a very integrated analytics tool that brings essentially like a proprietary platform and brings everything together it also does feel like aeon has something similar along that line as well as we see the two companies come together. Can you maybe just unpack the technology strategy in terms of direction of travel where integrated platform works, or is USI going to be kept on a separate system? Just curious how you think about everything in between.

Love it, Bob. Absolutely fantastic. By the way, we probably won't be able to get into the entire technology strategy and unpack it with a few minutes here on the call, but it's incredibly fundamental. Again, this is the premier middle market platform. We mean platform. This is a connected platform. This is, you know, Aon assets, USI assets, NFP assets operated in this middle market platform in the context of what we do across the North American theater. So this is connected on areas like analytics and capability. Think about the ABS platform on what we have and how it's been built and evolved over time. Now we're connected and even more effectively. So I do want to call on Mike again. He and Mindy Simon have spent real time on this in terms of thinking about the opportunities here. I think Mike come away with a lot of excitement about how we can take principles that are very aligned, objectives, very aligned, and do something pretty special to accelerate the ABS capability we've got and in doing so accelerate the ability to serve across this platform.

Yeah, Greg, when you and I first started talking and then when I further got the chance to spend time with Mindy, it's amazing how similar the proprietary platforms and technologies are that we've built over time at USI. And how do you use data to turn that into insight analytics? How do you provide a full breadth and depth of solutions that are in every individual relationship person, not just simultaneously the solutions and ideas customized and applied to that individual client? So what we're going to be able to do is really heavily focused on the U.S. middle market tool set that we'll be bringing together.

And I just want to remind one more thing here, Bob, that's so important. You say, well, that sounds like it could be difficult. Are you worried about the integration? Listen, what's just been accomplished by Mindy and our COO and all of the infrastructure on the three-by-three plan is massively complex. You didn't hear a word about it. That's because it was handled lawlessly. We have a connected global platform across 60,000. The middle market platform is a subset of that. It's within the construct of that. We know that play exceedingly well. It's been proven across global layout. Now we're going to apply it in the middle market platform. So, again, back to the idea of the synergies, the capture, the understanding that Ninh talked about. We have very specific line of sight led by Mindy across global layout, now across the North American theater, now in the U.S. middle market premiere platform. So this is all connected. This is all turbocharged to win both individually in a local market area powered by what we have globally. So we're incredibly excited about the momentum. The other piece of this gives us is, think about it, this is innovation at scale. When we get it right, one part of the world is now around the world immediately. That's unheard of in our industry. That's what this gives us. And finally, if I could, you know, this is about back to AI. We've said it many, many times. AI is not a strategy. The strategy is client leadership, client value. AI reinforces that, accelerates that. And we've been doing this since 2009 in terms of sort of back to what we've done. And so now we are accelerated as a three-by-three plan accelerated. And so AI actually helps accelerate what we're doing here as part of the middle market platform. So great question and a fundamental part of not just our ability to deliver on the strategy, but also capture the synergies that come with it.

Thank you. The next question is coming from Andrew Klingerman of TD Cowan. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks for taking the question. Congrats on the transaction. A question around USI and NFP. How do those two operations initially look from the get-go? Are they separate entities? Do you not combine them? Where is the brand going to go with those two companies? Just kind of curious, you know, when those two organizations come together and what the name is going to be. Is it going to be Aon over time? And then quickly also excess and surplus. I looked at slide eight and I see that 23% is specialty. A piece of that specialty is wholesale. So I'm going to guesstimate maybe 100, 200 million of revenue maybe comes from wholesale. I mean, is that something that could massively grow at Aon from a very small base? And I'll stop there. Thank you.

Well, Andrew, first of all, thanks for the questions. Really appreciate you chiming in this morning. Listen, you come back, and we're going to lay this out more and more as we unfold not just the synergies but sort of the overall approach. Understand, this is an absolute integrated, connected, premier middle market platform. And under Mike's leadership, when you think about it, Mike Schneider in the role he now plays, he's in Fox in the role, he plays at NFP. This is the team coming together, you know, with support from, you know, Doug Hammond in an executive chairman role. This is an integrated team coming together under Mike's leadership to really address the questions you're raising in a way that's connected, driven, and all there to deliver better client outcomes, full stop. And in doing so, win more clients, do more with them, keep them longer, organic growth. That machine, we know how it works. We've proven it. Now we're scaling it. So that's how it's going to all come together. That's, you know, the leadership team, as you will see, will be cutting across all three of those groups, one single leadership team. Again, that's why the technology and the business services platform fits within that as well. So this is a very clear guided plan with a real simple message, the most premier opportunity in the middle market for our clients and for our producers, for our client leaders, that, by the way, is going to just keep innovating so where we stop now is just an interesting placeholder uh what we want to do is keep innovating around that more and more and more so that's that's the thought on on the middle market side uh and then andy as you think about sort of the ens side reactions overall yeah i'm saying that we uh when you think about the ens uh possibilities for us you think of it in the context of the target specialty new programs the ens markets with the wholesaler

So, MGA and MGU, what we think are market-leading analytics that will enable us to win and expand our footprint there, twice more, but by…

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that is all the time we have today for questions. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Case for closing comments.

Thank you, Donna. And we just want to, again, appreciate you all joining on this special call. Obviously, a unique opportunity and moment in our history, as we said at the beginning, much about our history and more about what we can do on behalf of middle market clients with this combined U.S. premier platform, which we're very excited to sort of embark on post-close. So, again, thanks for the time today and look forward to updating you on our progress as we move forward. Thanks so much.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's event. You may disconnect your lines or log off the webcast at this time and enjoy the rest of your day.