Willis Towers Watson (WTW) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending December 31, 2022

February 9, 2023 9:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good morning. Welcome to the WTW Fourth 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 constitute 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 in the company and the company undertakes no obligation to update these statements. One moment. Thank you.

Some of the comments in today’s call may constitute 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 in today’s company and undertakes no obligation to update these statements unless required by law.

For more details discussed of these and other risk factors investors should review the forward-looking statements section in the earnings press release issued this morning as well as other disclosures in most recent Form 10-K and in other Willis Towers Watson SEC filings.

During the call, certain non-GAAP financial measures may be discussed. For reconciliations 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’ll now turn the call over to Carl Hess, WTW Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Carl Hess

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for WTW’s fourth quarter 2022 earnings call. Joining me today is Andrew Krasner, our Chief Financial Officer. In 2022, we focused on executing against our growth, simplify and transform strategic priorities, continuing to bring the best of WTW to our clients and generating value for our shareholders.

I’m proud to say that we delivered on all of these commitments. Today, we are stronger, more resilient and better positioned than we were a year ago, and I’m excited about what we will achieve going forward.

Our fourth quarter performance reflects the momentum we’ve been building and is a solid finish to a great year. In Q4, we delivered 5% organic growth, which brought our full year organic growth to 4%, in line with the mid-single digit forecast for 2022. We also saw a modest margin expansion despite significant headwinds from prior year book of business settlement activity, which is expected to normalize going forward.