Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (MMC) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending March 31, 2023

April 20, 2023 8:30 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Welcome to Marsh & McLennan's Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. First quarter 2023 financial results and supplemental information were issued earlier this morning. They are available on the company's website at marshmclennan.com.

Please note that remarks made today may include forward-looking statements. 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 Marsh McLennan website.

During the call today, we may also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. For a reconciliation of these measures to the most closely comparable GAAP measures, please refer to the schedule in today's earnings release. [Operator Instructions]

I'll now turn this over to John Doyle, President and CEO of Marsh & McLennan.

John Doyle - President and CEO

Good morning and thank you for joining us to discuss our first quarter results reported earlier today. I'm John Doyle, the President and CEO of Marsh McLennan. Joining me on the call is Mark McGivney, our CFO; and the CEOs of our businesses, Martin South of Marsh; Dean Klisura of Guy Carpenter; Martine Ferland of Mercer; and Nick Studer of Oliver Wyman. Also with us this morning is Sarah Dewitt, Head of Investor Relations.

Marsh McLennan had a strong start to 2023. Our first quarter results were excellent and we are well positioned for another good year. Top line momentum continued as we generated 9% underlying revenue growth on top of 10% growth in the first quarter of last year. We had strong growth across most businesses, segments and geographies with underlying growth at Marsh, Guy Carpenter and Mercer accelerating compared to the fourth quarter.

Adjusted operating income grew 13% versus a year ago, reflecting our strong growth. Our adjusted operating margin expanded by 150 basis points compared to the first quarter of 2022 and adjusted EPS growth was strong at 10%, building on 16% in the first quarter of 2022.

In addition to delivering terrific results, we continued to execute on acquisitions. On April 1, we completed the merger of BT Super with Mercer Super Trust creating one of Australia's most competitive super funds with approximately 850,000 members and 63 billion of assets under management.