Marsh & Mclennan Companies, Inc. (MRSH) Q4 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Welcome to Marsh & McLennan's Conference Call. Today’s call is being recorded. Fourth quarter 2020 financial results and supplemental information were issued earlier this morning. They are available on the company’s website at mmc.com. Please note that remarks made today may include forward-looking statements, including certain expectations related to COVID-19 and other matters. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and a variety of factors may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by such statements. For a more detailed discussion of those factors, please refer to our earnings release for this quarter and to our most recent SEC filings, including our most recent Form 10-K, all of which are available on the MMC website.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us to discuss our fourth quarter results reported earlier today. I’m Dan Glaser, President and CEO of Marsh & McLennan. Joining me on the call today is Mark McGivney, our CFO; and the CEOs of our businesses, John Doyle of Marsh; Peter Hearn of Guy Carpenter; Martine Ferland of Mercer; and Scott McDonald of Oliver Wyman. Also with us this morning is Sarah DeWitt, Head of Investor Relations. 2020 was a year like no other and Marsh & McLennan’s response and performance was nothing short of remarkable in these circumstances. The year was characterized by tough choices that we made as a business and as individuals. Our colleagues rose to the occasion and demonstrated resilience, courage, agility, collaboration and empathy in the face of the global pandemic and social unrest. Times like these validate our purpose to make a difference in the moments that matter for our clients, colleagues and communities, and we did exactly that. Our 2020 adjusted EPS growth of 7% is impressive in one of the worst economic recessions ever. Our strong financial performance also enabled us to continue to invest for the future. We continue to develop digital technologies to offer more robust client solutions. We made a number of strategic hires and achieved a record year of acquired revenue with MMA through eight acquisitions, with approximately 235 million of annualized revenue. Looking forward, while the global pandemic will most likely dominate at least the first half of 2021, there are brighter days ahead. Our proprietary pandemic navigator model predicts that as vaccines are rolled out and we move closer to herd immunity through natural immunity, infection case counts and vaccinations, the U.S. and UK could see a return to more normal patterns sometime in the back half of the year. As we emerge from the crisis, clients around the world can rely on our expertise, with the three areas that are critical for every organization: risk, strategy and people. The World Economic Forum's Annual Global Risks Report which was released last week and prepared with the support of Marsh & McLennan and other partners highlights some of the most likely and impactful risks facing the world today, and we are working with clients to navigate these issues.

Thank you, Dan, and good morning. We're pleased with our fourth quarter and full year results, which was strong despite the challenges of 2020. We grew our top line, delivered solid earnings growth and entered 2021 with a strong balance sheet and liquidity position. Consolidated revenue increased 4% in the fourth quarter to 4.4 billion, reflecting underlying growth of 1%. Operating income was 571 million, while adjusted operating income was 855 million. Our adjusted operating margin decreased 60 basis points to 21.3%. GAAP EPS was $0.73 and adjusted EPS was $1.19. Looking at risk and insurance services, fourth quarter revenue grew 6% to 2.5 billion and was up 3% on an underlying basis, or 4%, excluding the impact of a decline in fiduciary interest. We are pleased with this excellent finish to the year, which demonstrates the strength and resilience of our business in the face of the pandemic. Adjusted operating income decreased 5% to 525 million and the adjusted margin contracted 220 basis points to 23.5%, reflecting the expected increase in expense in the fourth quarter. For the year, revenue was 10.3 billion, an increase of 8% with solid underlying growth of 3%. Adjusted operating income growth for the year was impressive at 14%, and our adjusted operating margin in RIS increased 170 basis points to 28%. At Marsh, revenue in the quarter rose 7% to 2.4 billion increasing 4% on an underlying basis. In the U.S. and Canada division, underlying growth was 7% for the quarter and 5% for the full year, driven by strength across the portfolio. 2020 represents the third straight year of 5% or higher underlying growth in U.S. and Canada. In the international division, underlying revenue was flat in the quarter with Latin America up 3%, Asia Pacific up 1% and EMEA down 2%. For the full year, revenue at Marsh was 8.6 billion, an increase of 7% or 3% on an underlying basis.

Thank you, Mark. Operator, we’re ready to go to the Q&A.

Certainly. Our first question comes from the line of Elyse Greenspan with Wells Fargo.

Hi. Thanks. Good morning. My first question was on the outlook for 2021. You guys pointed to 3% to 5% overall organic revenue growth. Just trying to get a sense embedded in that, what’s the views for RIS versus consulting. And then given that you guys obviously expect the economy to start to rebound, I think you said, Dan, in the second quarter, but should we assume that the growth is better in the back three quarters than Q1?

Yes, it's a good question, Elyse. We were 3% to 5% growth on an underlying basis for 10 straight years before 2020. And so we feel that it's actually really positive that we're believing we will return to that 3% to 5% growth in 2021. The difference between RIS and consulting has more to do with what's happening in the global economy and macro factors, business confidence. Obviously, as demonstrated this year, the RIS business is a bit more resilient with higher levels of recurring revenues than the consulting business. But we're still hopeful actually that we will grow our consulting business in 2021 in both Mercer and Oliver Wyman, and that's actually our plan. We do expect that there would be more strength from the second quarter onwards, because the first quarter, you're basically comparing a pre-COVID world with a COVID world. And so there will be some challenges within that. But we've got some pretty decent momentum that we built throughout the year. And so we're expecting a good year in 2021. As we mentioned in the script, we expect margin expansion for the year and we also expect solid adjusted EPS growth.

Okay, that's helpful. And then my second question I guess is also on the other component of guidance, the margin improvement. You guys did, like you said, a pretty good job of managing your expenses during the second and the third quarter. Sounds like there was a little bit more reinvestment, some stuff that got put off I think you said in the fourth quarter. So I guess the same question I was thinking about on the margin side. It sounds like maybe there could be constraints on Q2 and Q3, because those are pretty tough comps. But I guess that's one part of the question. And then the same thing, are you implying, Dan, since you said, potentially growth in both consulting and RIS that both segments could see margin improvement in 2021?

Our margin improvement in 2021 will in part be a function of where organic growth is. When we look at it, you say we did a pretty good job in the second quarter. We reacted and reduced expenses quickly. Expense growth was down 5% in the second quarter, 4% in the third quarter. So I think it was a remarkable job—managing expenses without impacting the business itself, continuing to invest in the business, but managing our expenses aggressively and setting a very high bar for what was required in the midst of a real global crisis. The fourth quarter represents getting back—not quite to normal—but pacing the way we normally would. A little inside baseball in that we clearly did a number of strategic hires in the fourth quarter. We're actually up close to 500 headcount in the fourth quarter. And so we're positioned well for 2021. I'm not worried about quarter-by-quarter comparisons looking at 2021 versus 2020, because 2020 in a lot of ways is such a unique, bizarre type of year. So we're going to run our business the way we run our business as we usually do, where revenue growth exceeds expense growth in almost every quarter, and certainly in every year as it has done for the last 13 years. We want to turn the page on 2020 and focus on 2021. In the fourth quarter, we started really focusing on what that would mean. So I think we're positioned to grow decently in both. Whether our margin goes up in both segments or not, I'm not going to really talk about right now. Our expectation is that we will grow margins. Now, are we going to grow margins to the extent that we did as an overall company in 2020? Well, that would be a very tall ask, bearing in mind all the expenses that were pulled back in the second and third quarter.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mike Zaremski with Credit Suisse.

Hi. Good morning. I guess I'll ask the expense question a little differently. You said remarkable job kind of pulling back on expenses. So, I guess do you feel that or any kind of lessons or things that you think that can—expense wise or operating leverage wise—can kind of persist permanently, or are you saying kind of the relationship between revenues and expenses kind of hopefully just goes back to the old relationship as the world opens up and things get back to normal?

It's a complicated question, but I think the answer is both. I do think we will return to a more normal pattern to where we look at revenue growth in the 3% to 5% area. Our expense growth for a number of years, four out of the last five years before 2020, was actually about 2% growth. So our expense growth normally would be around 2% as it's been. Now some years it might be 3%, some years it might be 1%, but ultimately I think that's the more normal pattern. We do see the opportunity of certain things that we've learned during 2020 to continue. Clearly, when you think about things like where a business is filled with knowledge workers and subject matter experts, remote working is manageable for us. So our choice of returning to offices is just that: a choice. We think it's better for the business. We expect our offices and physical locations to remain the hub of activity in Marsh & McLennan. But having said that, over a period of a few years we would be able to reduce our footprint a bit, and that would benefit shareholders and colleagues by making life a bit more flexible. So certainly that's an area—real estate footprint is an example. We also operated much faster and more connected during COVID than we did previously, and there's an efficiency gain we want to keep. I don’t think travel will snap back quickly to 2019 levels; it may be quite a while. I do expect people, once COVID clears and the crisis is over, to return to travel to see markets and clients, but maybe we won't travel quite as much as we used to, and maybe we won't jump on an airplane at a moment's notice. It could be more like, let's talk on Zoom, because everybody's used to that now. So I do think that there is lasting efficiency gain which will benefit shareholders in the post-COVID world.

Okay, great. And last, a follow up switching gears a little bit to some of the more consulting centric businesses. I guess a lot of the questions we get are about whether organic will kind of succumb to some cost cutting actions some corporations are taking. I guess on the other hand, there seems to be a lot of uncertainty out there, which sometimes can lead to a new political administration, which could actually be a tailwind for parts of your consulting businesses. So maybe you can kind of talk through some of the pluses and minuses you’re seeing? Thanks.

Sure. I’ll lead that off and then I'll hand off to Martine and Scott who can give you a little bit more detail. Our consulting businesses, yes, have less recurring revenue and parts of the career business and Oliver Wyman are project based. But having said that, they're resilient businesses and there's still plenty of activity as demonstrated by performance through the year, which was minus 3, but much stronger—minus 3 the last three quarters and actually minus 1 for the year, which is much stronger than during the financial crisis. Areas like health and investments and retirement security are lasting and have resilience in and of themselves. Oliver Wyman's pop in the fourth quarter was a bit unexpected for us and it gave us—usually as I've mentioned before—they tend to be a bit of a canary in the coal mine for business confidence. Let me go to Martine first and then Scott who can give you a little bit more flavor for how they see growth in their businesses in 2021. Martine?

Yes. Well, thanks, Ben and Mike for the question. Actually we're pleased, as Dan said, about the new business activities that we've seen in the current challenging circumstances. We look at what the world needs right now in terms of redefining the world of work and addressing health challenges. We've also seen quite a lot of demand in the investment solutions side of our portfolio. We've closed the year at a record level of assets under management at $357 billion. So I'd say health has been resilient through the crisis. We grew 2%. And we see a bright spot there in terms of digital solutions demand for virtual care, mental health, for example, or workforce communication. As I said, wealth—we have the structural decline in defined benefit, but that has slowed down a bit during 2020. We've seen a lot of project work related to market volatility, so that could continue. But definitely our investment solutions are very much in demand. For us, career is our most discretionary project work business, particularly on the service side of career. But career usually rebounds with the economy, and as Dan said in his remarks, we expect the economy recovery to come back at least in part in H2 and therefore we are seeing some strength in the career pipeline; we've seen that in Q4. All in all, I think our services are very relevant for the times. We're watching, of course, the agenda from the Biden administration, but we think that we are well positioned there. In particular, we are very strong in ESG, like diversity and inclusion consulting and also on responsible investment, and helping clients address the transition to a low carbon economy. So I think as soon as the economy comes back, we should see a good rebound.

Thank you, Martine. Scott, let’s talk a little bit about how you see 2021.

Yes, sure, Dan and Mike. From an underlying perspective, we had a very strong Q4 and we had strong business activity across most segments of the business and particular strengths in areas like financial services, health, the public sector and our actuarial and living cost businesses. The type of business we're doing was really broad based, ranging from growth strategies and digital transformation to restructuring and bankruptcy. There's a lot to do as businesses recover after the pandemic and they rebuild, grow and transform. Oliver Wyman also tends to focus on big companies, which have performed relatively better than small companies over the last period. Looking into the new year, our new sales pipeline is strong. As you said, clients are facing significant uncertainty as they manage through the last leg of the pandemic. The first quarter could be challenging, but beyond that I feel really good about our business, our prospects and our ability to grow. Companies are certainly challenged and have at least another quarter or more of uncertainty, but they have a lot to do and need a lot of support. I think between Oliver Wyman and Mercer we have many of the things they need.

Thanks, Scott. Next question please.

The next question comes from the line of Phil Stefano with Deutsche Bank.

Yes, thanks. I want to go back to the expenses for a moment. And I think last quarter, the commentary was that it would be up sequentially, but maybe not to the extent that we saw on a year-over-year basis, and it feels like it was higher than that. And I was hoping you could talk around—my suspicion is there was an opportunity for investment or hiring. Maybe you can better flesh that out.

It's a good question, Phil. My expectation on the call for our third quarter was that expenses would rise in the fourth quarter, but they would still be negative on a year-over-year basis. Actually they were positive year-over-year. Our expenses grew about 1.5% to 2% in the fourth quarter. So it was a bit of a surprise. There are two factors underneath that. One, we didn't expect Oliver Wyman to grow in the fourth quarter and Oliver Wyman grew. As I've mentioned before, they have the most variable compensation model, and so when they're growing, that's when we build in more variable comp. So that was one factor. The hiring that we did in the fourth quarter on the strategic recruitment side was higher than what we expected. We see a lot of opportunities out there, and we're up nearly 500 headcount on a net basis in the fourth quarter. Those are the two factors that contributed to the expense increase. It's important to point out neither of those factors in and of themselves are one way. With the strategic hires, we expect revenue over time as a result of building out our headcount as we've done for many years. And the variable comp increase in Oliver Wyman is a good news story because it's attached to growth. I'd love for that to continue because it would signify top-line growth in Oliver Wyman.

Okay. And dialing in on the RIS international businesses, to what extent do the different regions within there have different organic growth profiles in the short run? I'm trying to think through the various regions’ ability to manage vaccinations, to adopt stimulus programs and things like that. Should we see significant differences in these regions as we look in the very short term?

Yes, it's a good question. I'll start and then hand over to John and Peter. Let's bear in mind our top six countries represent about 75% to 77% of our revenue: the United States, UK, Canada, Australia, France and Germany. Those are developed economies. We will have variability: different rollouts and timing as individual countries return to normal. John, how do you see regional growth patterns going into 2021?

Sure, and thank you for the question. We expect a better growth trajectory in the international business in 2021. Of course, the economic outlook matters. Many parts of the world struggled more economically as a byproduct of the pandemic and saw less government intervention to support the economies. Internationally, in many markets a lot of premium spend can be quite discretionary, and you have liability environments that are very different than the U.S. We also saw less price and less rate increase in many of those markets. So I would expect less premium growth internationally than we saw in the U.S., where we had very strong revenue growth this year. But overall I'm optimistic about 2021; it should be a better year.

Thanks, John. Peter, you want to give us Guy Carpenter's perspective of regional growth patterns?

Sure. Our 2020 international business was fantastic. We had strong double-digit growth in Latin America, Asia Pacific and EMEA operations, including our UK operations. We have not seen any weakness in the underlying premium basis from our clients. Uncertainty creates demand in the reinsurance business. The uncertainty created by COVID and the potential loss magnitude increased demand in all of our businesses. For the first time in a long time, our international businesses have all grown by strong double digits. And we see the same thing for 2021.

Thank you. Next question please.

Our next question comes from the line of Jimmy Bhullar with JPMorgan.

Hi. Good morning. First a question on capital deployment. I think you mentioned 3.5 billion. I guess about 1 billion of that will be used for dividends, about 0.5 billion for debt retirement, so the remaining 2 billion. Should we assume that buybacks will be consistent with what you've done in the past, which is sort of offset the share count or go down a little bit, or would you consider being more active, either based on the stock price or just your deal pipeline?

Sure. Jimmy, your math is good. The 3.5 billion; your 1 billion for dividends, 0.5 billion in debt paydown and your remainder of 2 billion. As I said earlier and as we've said consistently, we favor acquisitions. So the $2 billion bucket leans to M&A. Our M&A pipeline is good. But I would say we do expect a meaningful amount of share repurchases. The exact amount will depend on the strength of the M&A pipeline as we go through the year.

And how is the competition for deals and availability of attractive properties? There seems to be a lot of interest and ongoing consolidation in the market.

We’re the market leader. We don't compete a lot for assets in the marketplace in competitive bidding processes. The majority of companies we acquire are in exclusive negotiations. Their decision oftentimes is whether to come with Marsh & McLennan or remain private. We don't chase deals broadly. If a company is debating selling to us versus private equity, they are often not ready for that conversation. We like transactions where working together enables more flow for the combined operation going forward. We're highly selective. We're not doing dozens and dozens of deals like some in the market. Most of our acquisitions were in some element of exclusive discussion.

Next question please.

Our next question comes from the line of Meyer Shields with KBW.

Thanks. Dan, I don't know if you mentioned this before and I missed it, but the nearly 500 headcount increase in the fourth quarter, was that more weighted towards RIS or consulting?

I don't have the precise number for you, but it would be RIS-weighted. Consulting also increased. If I look at our overall headcount for the total company in 2020, it is up slightly versus 2019. We didn't empty the cupboard and achieve margin expansion in a way that's going to impact us negatively in the future. We are well prepared for a rebound. RIS had a very strong year and is the market leader, and we are the employer of choice in the industry with many opportunities to build our headcount with quality subject matter experts and producing people.

Okay, that's helpful. On a different topic, you and Martine mentioned the record assets under management. Can you give us a framework for how we should think about that impacting earnings?

Sure. It's not a direct read-through. With AUM growing, we generally earn more revenue from that and it can create a bit more volatility. It's a good news story; the CAGR on AUM has been mid-20s over the last five years. Martine, how should Meyer and others think about AUM when it comes down to Mercer's business?

Well, it's definitely a very strong suit for us and demand through the COVID crisis has increased, similar to what we saw in the global financial crisis. When markets become more uncertain, the demand for improved governance and transaction agility drives demand for us, and we're seeing this. We had very strong inflows in 2020 and a very good pipeline for 2021. Of course, capital markets impact AUM and revenue. Within the offering, there are different types: pension assets and non-pension assets. Clients decide asset mix and exposure to equity, bonds or private markets. The way we deploy these assets helps mitigate risk through diversification. Revenue flows depend on when AUM funds in the year, but it's a success and growth story so far.

Our next question comes from the line of David Motemaden with Evercore ISI.

Hi. Thanks. Good morning. I just wanted to follow up a bit on the underlying expenses and how to think about it. Dan, you mentioned earlier it was a bit above what you had expected in 4Q. How should we be thinking about it into 2021? Based on my calculations it looks like underlying expenses were up 1% in 2020. Would you still expect it to be in that 2% to 3% range in 2021, or is some of the timing impact going to bring underlying expense growth below that range as we look to 2021?

It's an impossible question to answer without knowing the organic or underlying growth rate for 2021 in each of our businesses, because a fair amount of our expense growth is linked to variable comp. Our bonus pool increased in 2020; the overall Marsh & McLennan bonus pool has never been higher than in 2020 because profitability was up considerably. What I look forward to in 2021 is that revenue will almost certainly exceed expense growth as it has for the last 13 years. Some of the fourth-quarter expense increase was non-run rate. For 10 years prior to COVID, we grew underlying revenue between 3% and 5% and delivered an adjusted EPS CAGR over that decade of close to 12%. Ultimately, as long as we grow underlying revenue, we can run our business and expenses to deliver strong adjusted EPS growth. That's how I think about 2021.

Okay, great. Thanks. And maybe a quick question for John: what are your thoughts on the primary P&C market pricing environment? How long do you think this current hardening rate environment will continue? There has been some discussion it may start to taper off at the end of the year and be more in line with loss trend. What's your sense of the direction of the market?

John, you want to take that?

Sure, David. The market remains very challenging for our clients in the quarter. Dan talked about overall price increases at 22% versus 20% in the third quarter. 2020 was a difficult year for insurers: CAT losses, COVID losses, social inflation and low interest rates. COVID accelerated the trend for rising prices throughout 2020. The U.S., UK and Australia are the most difficult markets generally speaking. Looking forward, I'm most concerned about D&O pricing and excess liability pricing, especially excess liability in the U.S. There's ongoing discussion about growing claim frequency and severity driven in part by social inflation. We are seeing some lines of business where the rate increase has moderated; that doesn't mean prices are down, but the average increase in some lines like property wasn't as high as in the third quarter. From my clients’ perspective, I'm most concerned about D&O and excess liability. As time wears on through 2021, other lines will likely moderate a bit.

Thank you. I would now like to turn the call back over to Dan Glaser, President and CEO of Marsh & McLennan, for any closing remarks.

I'd like to thank everyone for joining us on the call this morning. In closing, I'd also like to thank our colleagues for their hard work and dedication in 2020, which, of course, was a very challenging year. I want to thank our clients for their continued support. I look forward to speaking to all of you next quarter. Be well.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating and you may now disconnect.