Willis Towers Watson Public Limited Company (WTW) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, everyone. On behalf of MKM Partners, I am delighted to host this afternoon session with Carl Hess, incoming CEO of Willis Towers Watson. Behind the scenes, Claudia De La Hoz, Head of Investor Relations, is also with us today. And without any further ado, Carl, let me just begin since I know we only have 30 minutes to today's session. I was wondering if you could, a couple of questions in terms of what may have already taken place, and then we'll move on to the forward part of the questions that I have. It's only been 2 months since your Investor Day, but I was wondering if you could give us any brief updates of accomplishments, disappointments, new initiatives on the restructuring program that you laid out in September. Again, I know it's only 2 months. And if you could address it both from a corporate standpoint as well as a financial standpoint, since both are going to be critical in the success of where Willis Towers is headed.

Sure. Thank you, Harry. And just to recap for everybody, what we've done is announce we're going to, by 2024, take $300 million off the expense line. We estimate $750 million cost to do that. And the good news is, we've already begun in terms of getting together with our teams and actually drilling down and establishing a budget for where that $750 million is going to get spent and where we think the savings can be achieved. And those fall in 3 major buckets, right? I mean, real estate, where we have excellent visibility into our costs and a distinct plan that we're already beginning to execute on how we can make our real estate footprint fit for purpose in 2022 and beyond. The theme there is turn our offices into collaboration space rather than sit around by yourself in a cubicle space. Won't take as much. We've already shown organizationally we're ready for this. We adapted really well during COVID to the virtual environment. And they kept telling me, we had thousands of people who thought that we'll never be able to do broking or consulting in a virtual sense have been able to not just do it but thrive doing it. So we're highly confident of that leg. The second is technology, both at the enterprise level and at the segment level, where a lot of our technology, especially client-facing technology lives. There's a couple of themes there that those of you who know the company will recognize. One is, we have a tendency toward perfectionism in the organization. So rather than reuse something, there's been a tendency to invent your own. So as a result, right, we have a multitude of chatbots built into our client-facing software rather than just use one over and over and over again. So simplicity is our friend on this one. And then being the product of as many mergers as we have, we have a bit of deferred maintenance and trying to simplify how we actually do work in terms of our broking systems, our client relationship platforms, et cetera, that we're going to get a move on. We think not only is that going to lower our expense base, but will make it easier to do business and grow at the same time. Nothing like having our total relationship with a client at our fingertips. The third area is organizational efficiency, think automation, process improvement, robotics and right-shoring. And we've already begun the process of identifying across the business what is the subject at hand and indeed where we're going to be doing it. So the other thing I want to just talk about a bit, Harry, is organizational readiness for that. The last thing we want to do is embark on a big transformation program then face death by friendly fire, right? Having a colleague population that's not ready for transformation is a good way to ensure a disaster in a transformation program. So myself and the management team have been out in front of colleagues, spending an awful lot of time over the last couple of months winning hearts and minds for the future ahead, our overall strategy, which transformation is a critical part. And what I've been telling our people is, transformation is everyone's business. This isn't a black box, isn't being done to you, you're a part of it. And that's resonated, I think, really well with our people who are hungry for better ways of working. They're not as wedded to the status quo. They were actually anticipating a future that is rosier than today in terms of how we go about this.

Terrific. The second question I have in terms of looking backwards would be your staffing levels. Obviously, during 2020 when the discussions with Aon were ongoing, a lot of your employees were likely told that they might not be part of the combined organization and may have started to look, some of them may have received retention bonuses until the merger closes, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Again, looking back, all of those folks that were on that list that have not left probably received retention bonuses to stay on. Those retention bonuses are really hard to get rid of. And so I'm just curious to see what the margin implications are for what you had to do to keep folks. And what does that suggest over the next several quarters? We know you have targets for improving margins all the way out to 2024, but there are folks that are more interested in perhaps the shorter term as well. So can you spend a few minutes on that issue.

Happy to. And maybe I'll give you a little more detail than you're actually looking for just to provide some clarity into how we go about this. So the retention we had put in place for the Aon merger was designed to keep people through the deal. And because of that, especially when you're combining 2 finance departments into 1, 2 legal departments into 1, et cetera, et cetera, that was tilted toward preserving our corporate functions because those were the ones where we knew people were going to be losing their jobs and keeping them through and a bit after the deal was critical, but not necessarily beyond that. So when the deal broke, right, we didn't just pay those retention bonuses because frankly, in terms of thinking about Willis Towers Watson going forward as a stand-alone thriving company, it wasn't designed for the right population, right? We didn't have that situation. Our finance department was going to continue as the Willis Towers Watson finance department. So we have designed retention programs and put in place that are designed to keep people and revenue that we want to keep with the organization. And indeed, to incentivize our new next generation of leadership to step up to the plate and take us forward to the next level. That, I think, has actually given clarity on our direction. And the colleagues that are taking part of this are excited about that, right? We've communicated in terms of, this is our new way forward. And so it's enmeshing them in the organization and what they can help us achieve. The duration of the incentives does align with our growth plans, both our immediate and our longer-term growth plans. And they've been designed so that the associated costs are either onetime in nature or linked to future performance, getting to your point about sort of institutionalizing retention as part of compensation. So we think we've done this in an affordable way. It is one of the advantages of having the world's largest, and I dare say, best compensation consultant under your roof, right, that we do have in-house. We do this for clients, we do it for ourselves as well. So we're confident these will not present an overriding burden on margins if growth rates were to slow down in the future. We think they're fit for purpose.

Terrific. Now beginning to look forward a little bit. Clearly, the current state of the property and casualty industry is having an impact on your results as well as all the other brokers. Commission income is probably a little bit bigger part of your total CRB revenues than perhaps at your larger competitors just because you have focused more on the smaller to medium-sized accounts that may still be paying on a commission basis vis-a-vis Fortune 500 accounts that are largely fee-driven. That said, the cycle is providing some benefit certainly as we go into 2022. However, no one knows what's going to happen in 2023 or 2024 when you are supposed to hit some of those financial targets. Yes. Can you provide any commentary regarding how you intend to get from here to there? How much of it is reliant on the industry fundamentals? How much of it is reliant on Willis Towers' efforts?

Yes. So I mean, a couple of thoughts, right? One is, if you look at how we pay people, fundamentally, variable compensation is a very large part of our total remuneration bill. And we've had a disciplined approach of making sure that it represents a fair share of the profits that the organization generates and keeping our shareholders front of mind as we do that. So we have some flexibility built into what is our largest individual expense item that can enable us to keep the margins where we want to be. No one likes pain, lower bonuses, but we know how to do it. And we have done it in the past and it's a discipline that helps you very well on a go-forward basis. We've been very transparent with our colleagues about that. And they know they get to enjoy the good times and they know they will share in some of the pain of the bad times. So that flexibility is actually quite helpful for us as an organization. And of course, producer plans fluctuate with revenue as well. And so there are ways that sort of naturally balance this out in the system. I would point out that rate does represent an effect on our revenues, but by no means is it the predominant effect, right? Organic growth is a big component. And of course, we've got a tremendous portfolio of businesses that aren't dependent on commissions at all, right, in our consulting businesses, our administration businesses, our investment management business. We've got a highly diversified revenue base. And that does help us in both good times and smooth things out in bad times as well. So some of our competitors are a bit more concentrated in broking. They may feel more of the upside, a bit more on the downside through the rate cycle.

Got it. Got it. In terms of organic growth, perhaps we can chat about that. Obviously, organic growth wasn't what the company had hoped for in 2020. It's picked up a little bit in 2021. But to meet some of your goals, what are you thinking is necessary for organic growth? And how do you intend to get that organic growth? It's easy to just say organic growth. It's not so easy to really accomplish it.

Agree with that, right? I can say everything from this seat, but growth happens on the ground. I totally get that. So a couple of things we're doing, right? One is, obviously, we went through a period of much of 2020 and 2021 where replenishing our talent base was not much of an option, right? Who's going to join in a front office role, an organization that's got a merger hanging over its head. So what we have been doing ever since we have been masters of our destiny once more is making sure we are keeping the people we have because they are the base of our growth. Second, reminding people we are open for business in terms of being an employer of choice. And for those of you who follow the trade rags, we're starting to see the fruits of that strategy come to bear already. Our phone started ringing on July 27. But you obviously don't bring people over in a day, right? So we are actively recruiting across our businesses. We expect that will pay off in the months and years to come. The other thing is learning and development, right, upskilling your people. And this is an area we've paid a lot of attention to over the past several years so that we can make sure that the workforce of the future, right, those junior employees, the next generation is ready, fit and able to step into situations, which benefits us in all sorts of ways, right? Not only often are they somewhat less expensive than more experienced personnel, but they're hungrier for the opportunity and that can help. And then lastly, I'm quite serious about finding the smart intersections in our portfolio where we can add value from the combination of skills we have already. That's one of the reasons for the changes in our segment structure going forward. So putting our retirement and investment businesses side by side so they can properly service the pension market on a holistic basis is important. And getting our insurance consulting and technology business right next to our risk and broking business so that the same technology powering the insurance industry is powering our brokers as well. That gives, I think, a unique perspective on how to manage risk for our clients.

Got it. You mentioned upskilling people as one way to achieve organic growth over the next number of years. However, we do know that real estate, as you pointed out earlier, is one of the areas where you're looking at saving expenses. We also know, in chatting with Claudia, that the Philadelphia office has basically been cut in half already from 5 floors to 2.5 floors. And there may well be more to go. How do you upskill people if they're not in the office?

Yes. Great question, right? And the answer is, well, they will be in the office some of the time, right? So we learned some things over the last couple of years. I mean, much of our work can be done remotely without any loss of productivity whatsoever. And we did learn that we can form virtual teams, agile teams, remotely analyze data, provide advice for consulting folks remotely and do routine claims management, right? That doesn't need to be in the office. And that does help us because we can now recruit talent regardless of where they sit, right, across that. But what we have in mind here is a hybrid model, right? Some days spent in the office collaborating and some days spent working remotely. And that lets us rethink that real estate footprint to give the flexibility our colleagues want. And that actually is a huge draw for talent. I can't tell you how many conversations we've had when we're talking to people who might want to work for us and say, can I do this with respect to work? The answer is, well, yes, we can fit that in. So that's, I think, a big draw, especially with the younger generations. So the hybrid model gives the employees the chance to have the best of both worlds, right? They can tackle projects that require deep focus at home and then come to the office to collaborate and create, and that gives them a better work-life balance. Now that's not without some complications, and you're correct in pointing those out, right? A fully remote workforce and maybe even a hybrid model can present challenges in creating a stable cohesive culture and for developing juniors, right? And that's not unique to the next generation of brokers, right? It's actually across our entire portfolio. It's across all industries. And so it's become critical to assess the facets of employee experience and to think about new strategies that will help address these workforce challenges and engage talent. So what we're trying to do, right, is create a great onboarding and training experience for new hires that builds on this new environment, creates a welcome and inclusive experience, prepares them for their future in the organization. I mean, some of that happens naturally, right? A senior broker used to be shadowed in attending in-person client meetings. Now that senior broker is being shadowed virtually because the client meetings would often be happening over a video conference or a part video conference heard in-person. And so it's actually a much more natural way for this rather than have someone just sort of sitting in the corner, right, they're snooping over the monitor, right? It's a less intrusive way of going about this. But it has required rethinking our approaches to employee engagement sort of across a very diverse and very distributed workforce. I mean, there are things we can do to get new hires to quickly acclimate to their new positions and feel supported, buddy systems, peer-to-peer mentoring. That kind of gets them early social connections in the organization and technology, right? So we have been prioritizing in-office attendance for our more junior colleagues. We encourage cameras on during meetings that, sorry, they have to look at my face, right? There are downsides to this, but shadowing is still happening, some in-person, but remote shadowing is actually less intimidating when meeting new stakeholders for the first time. So we are thinking about this. We're thinking about this real hard. We had a task force going on this beginning a few months into COVID, right, because we could see the future and we're embracing it, right? And the beauty of it is, I've actually talked to so many colleagues and in their own ways, they're embracing it, too. We are not just a bunch of 55-year-old brokers going, I want my private office anymore. We've kind of already moved to agile working. In some ways, this is less of a transition than agile working was.

Got it. Yes. It's an interesting question in terms of development. And the reason for that question actually comes from a young broker that I know, who basically said, I'm not sure that this is going to work because I'm not talking to a senior person. I'm not trailing a senior person. And he basically said, I'm not learning. And that may be an issue with not having 8 to 5 day for these younger folks.

Yes. I will say, we know when people are on and not. And the day seems to be, we worry about the day getting too long, right? People just sort of working to fill hours. And we're very good about making sure people step away from the screen when they should be stepping away from the screen. But we're also working hard on that because having someone say, I'm not learning, that's incredibly poor for engagement, right? So right now we're in the middle of an all colleague pulse survey to get a handle on engagement. And we do take actions based on this. So if we find pockets where the business isn't adapting quickly enough to these new ways of working, we'll focus our attention on them. That's the beauty of being able to do these pulse surveys on a frequent basis.

Another question on organic growth. Over the years, organic growth has chiefly come from the P&C broking business or the reinsurance broking business and much less from retirement services, benefits consulting. How do you see organic growth at Willis, let's say, over the next 2 to 3 years? We heard from Julie at the Investor Day that she is going to reinvigorate growth, seek more growth in her area. But historically, the real growth in the business is really from the broking business, less so from her side of the operation. Your thoughts on where we're headed.

I think you can actually take Julie's business and disaggregate it a bit, it gives you a bit more clarity into where growth comes from, right? So I agree. Our retirement business is an extremely low growth proposition on an organic basis, which actually is quite a good result in a market that is slightly shrinking globally. There are some areas where we continue to find growth. But in general, it's a very large business. It's a very profitable business for us. We very much like it, but we're not looking at as a major growth pillar for the organization. On the other hand, Julie's health business, her talent business have excellent growth potential, and you can see that from the results they've put up. The talent business can be a bit cyclical, and we've been adapting over time to a mix of consulting and software. The technology end of it being a bit more resilient to economic downturns than the consulting side of it, and that's helped, I think, the overall profitability and growth potential of Talent and Rewards. And our Benefits Administration business is something where we have immense growth potential. We tend to be very picky in who we take on as clients there because we'd like to make sure we're profitably big, not just big in the area. And we took on a good track record in doing that. And we have, our technology is newer than most of the competition, and that does give us a leg up in that area. So there's plenty of potential there. Investments is a business that has higher than average growth potential as an organization. Right now that's around a $250 million business. We could be much bigger if we want in that. And so the opportunity through organic growth as well as inorganic opportunities should continue over there. And then lastly, right, there's the Benefits Delivery & Administration business of Gene Wickes. It's going to be moving into Julie's segment. TRANZACT has been growing at double-digit rates, and we think there's tremendous potential in that business to continue growing it. So I think I challenge that our growth isn't a bit more balanced. Yes, retirement, it may not be a help to Julie, but the rest of her portfolio, we think, has significant potential in it.

And as you may know, I've been a huge fan of TRANZACT and where that might be headed. But unfortunately, we're not quite there yet with prepaid employers health insurance, but we may get there at some point.

The opportunity set there, right, with 36 million retirees, I'll take my chances.

Understood. Do you have any targets for inorganic growth?

So what Andrew Krasner and I have said is, we remain in the market, but it's likely to be for bolt-on opportunities or where we see an adjacency that's sensible. And we don't see any big transformational M&A as being in the cards for at least the short to medium term. We have made commitments regarding capital at Investor Day, and we plan on living up to those, but we're not out of the market. And you could see, for instance, the acquisition we just announced in Israel as meeting all the criteria. I just talked about that Andrew are looking at. We do use buybacks as the yardstick for deploying capital. And that disciplined approach, I think, will serve us very well looking at opportunities going forward. Those opportunities exist, right, but they've got to be at a sensible price.

Got it. So no targets in terms of how much inorganic growth?

I would just think, we're going to be there. We're going to be doing what makes sense, but we've laid out how we think we're going to deploy our free cash flow over the next 3 years. And we'll be sticking to that plan unless circumstances radically change.

Got it. Got it. Yes. Now we do like the support that the share buyback program provides in the short term. But over the longer term, we probably do need to supplement that with...

And we do have the capability, right? We're not planning on returns, sorry, shareholders, we're not giving you 100% of it back. We are planning on investing in the business. We are planning on looking at M&A. And as the facts change, we'll change our mind, right? But right now, I think we have plenty to do and keep us occupied without getting out there and doing something that could cause us to get way too far ahead of our skis. But the smaller bolt-on, the sensible expansion, we're definitely in the market for doing that. And our business leaders continue to bring us opportunities. And the first word out of our mouth is let's see. It's not no.

We only have a couple of minutes left. I know that, at least, I believe most of the folks that you were trying to save have already been, have obviously been done by now. And you've been hiring some people as well. Has hiring people been relatively easy? Are you getting the folks that you're targeting? And is there a number in terms of hirees that you're seeking to complete the new Willis over the next 12 months?

If there's a number, I don't know it, right? We have financial budgets and we have ideas for where we think we can use people, right? But I'd rather get the right people in the door and not worry necessarily about the timing of that as good people are hard to find, right? Good people who are going to fit your culture and your organization and what we're trying to achieve are even harder to find. So as we find them, we'll hire them.

Got it. Okay. Well, I see that our time is about up. So I want to thank you for giving us a part of your day today. Claudia, thank you. And for the folks on the line, feel free to reach out to both Claudia and me if you have additional questions on Willis Towers Watson. Carl, thank you, and I look forward to seeing you again person-to-person soon.

I look forward to it, Harry. Thanks.

Thank you.