Willis Towers Watson (WTW) Q2 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending June 30, 2022

July 28, 2022 9:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to WTW Second Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. Please refer to wtwco.com for the press release and supplemental information that was issued earlier today. Today's call is being recorded and will be available for the next three months on WTW's website.

Some of the comments in today's call may cause you forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those discussed today and the company undertakes no obligation to update these statements unless required by law.

For a more detailed discussion of these and other risk factors, investors should review the forward-looking statements section of the earnings press release issued this morning as well as other disclosures in the most recent Form 10-K and in other Willis Tower Watson's SEC filings.

During the call, certain non-GAAP financial measures may be discussed. For a reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures as well as other information regarding these measures please refer to the most recent earnings release and other materials in the Investor Relations section of the company's website.

I will now turn the call over to Carl Hess, WTW's Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Carl Hess

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for WTW second quarter 2022 earnings call. Joining me today is Andrew Krasner, our Chief Financial Officer.

In the second quarter WTW delivered results that as expected built off the solid start we had to our year. We generated organic revenue growth of 3% and adjusted diluted earnings per share of $2.32 as we continue to make progress on our strategic initiatives. Our transformation program continued expense discipline and operating leverage from new business generation drove 30 basis points of adjusted operating margin despite headwinds from our growth investments.

We also continued to execute against our capital allocation strategy and completed $471 million in share repurchases in the second quarter, bringing total share repurchases for 2022 to $2.7 billion. Overall, we're pleased with our second quarter performance and remain confident in our ability to deliver against our financial goals in both 2022 and the longer term.

This confidence comes from our ongoing execution against our strategy to grow, simplify and transform as well as our continued progress in rebuilding our talent and ramping our productivity. Through the first half of the year, we've already seen top line benefits from our investments in talent and we expect that benefit to meaningfully accelerate in the second half of the year.