Outgoing Marsh McLennan chief on "the honour of a lifetime"

“During Dan’s tenure at the helm of Marsh McLennan, the company has been transformed,” declared Glaser’s successor, John Doyle, during the firm’s latest earnings conference call. “Our revenue has nearly doubled, our adjusted EPS (earnings per share) has more than tripled, and our market cap has quadrupled.

“Our scale and capabilities have been enhanced, and our talent is unmatched. Dan led our expansion into new client segments and launched March McLennan Agency (MMA)… Dan also successfully led the company’s US$5.6 billion acquisition of JLT in 2019, the largest in our history. Most importantly, Dan has led our firm with vision, courage, and integrity.”

For the chief operating officer and vice chair, Marsh McLennan’s financial performance is a testament to his predecessor’s ‘inspiring’ values-first stewardship.

Read more: Marsh McLennan delivers Q3 results

“Less visible but even more significant is the sense of pride and the culture that Dan has instilled in the firm,” said Doyle, who is taking over in 2023. “We owe him our gratitude. So, on behalf of our 86,000 colleagues, I thank him for his leadership.”

Glaser, meanwhile, also expressed his appreciation. “I’d like to thank our clients for choosing to do business with us; our shareholders for their continued confidence; and, most importantly, our colleagues – all that we have achieved is due to their efforts.”

The CEO pointed to the “great privilege” of not only having led Marsh McLennan but also having worked with what he described as smart, creative, and dedicated people.

“I am immensely proud of our colleagues and what we have accomplished,” he told attendees, including analysts who also offered congratulations while posing questions. “Together we’ve grown, innovated, and persevered. We launched and built MMA, expanded our capabilities in combination with JLT, and demonstrated resilience in the face of a financial crisis and global pandemic. We emerged as a better and stronger firm.”

Read more: Marsh McLennan confirms new president and CEO

As for further growth and strength for the business, Glaser cited Marsh McLennan’s “good” mergers and acquisitions (M&A) pipeline.

“As we’ve said a few times before in the past, we cultivate relationships over long stretches of time,” he noted. “We’re less interested in the call from a banker saying, ‘Hey, something’s going to market and we’re inviting 10 people; you want to participate?’ For us, pipeline development and meeting as a core executive team on a regular cadence to review the pipeline and talk to potential prospects in the future – that’s just a part of how we go about the business.

“We favour building our business through acquisition over share repurchase, but they sort of go in tandem. When we have a lighter year in M&A, we’ll have more share repurchase, like this year. When we have a heavier year in M&A, we’d have less share repurchase, because our dividend comes first and is sacrosanct. So, when we look at the pipeline, the pipeline is good… If you exclude JLT, we’ve sort of averaged about a billion dollars a year on acquisitions, and that’s likely to continue.”

Any continuation, assured or otherwise, will be on Doyle’s watch, though.

“[This] is my 60th earnings call at Marsh McLennan and 40th as CEO,” said Glaser. “After 10 years as president and CEO, I will be retiring from Marsh McLennan at the end of the year. Leading this firm over the past decade has been the honour of a lifetime… From the bottom of my heart, thank you for the trust you have put in me.”