Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). Your first question comes from Keith Walsh – Citi.
Keith Walsh – Citi
First question, if I could just get Dan as well as Peter, to comment on it, just thinking about future margin gains, year-to-date, you guys at 19.6, have matched your biggest rival who have doing this for several more years than you, as far as the turnaround is concerned. Thinking about a difficult 2010 revenue environment, can you talk specifically about what levers, both in Guy Carpenter, as well as within Marsh retail, are left to drive earnings and margins as we go forward?
Dan Glaser
Well, let's talk about Q4 and then talk a little bit about beyond. Clearly we're beginning to lap some of the major initiatives that we've done over the last couple of years. I still expect to see margin improvement in Q4. I also expect to see margin improvement within Marsh next year, but not at the same pace that we have been going at over the last couple of years.
The Marsh story is in not an expense story. It's a turnaround story. We have focused on expenses over the past couple of years and I'm really thrilled with my management team to, over the last few months, be able to turn all of our energy to how do we grow this business, both organically and by acquisition. So I think over the course of the next several years, you will see levels of growth both by acquisition and organic.
While we have been focused on improving the margin and reducing expense, don't get the wrong impression that even though a lot of that has dropped to the bottom line we haven't been investing in the business. We've been actively investing in the business. Just to give you a couple of things, in this people business, we hired 300 sales professionals this year around the world and year-to-date. So actually, since early 2008, we've hired 186 managing directors and senior vice presidents, all focused on ways to grow the business.
Peter Zaffino
Echo what Dan said at the beginning; a lot of our expense initiatives have been lapped as you look at 2009 and as we look forward to 2010, but the Guy Carpenter story is about top line growth. We've made, as Brian said in his opening comments, significant investments in senior executives, but a focus on top line growth, which we've been able to achieve.
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