WTW Outlines Growth and Value Creation Strategy at 2024 Investor Day
- Presents compelling strategic framework to accelerate performance, enhance efficiency and optimize the portfolio
- Details rebalanced capital allocation approach to elevate and expand core businesses
- Highlights outlook for sustainable mid-single-digit organic growth and continued annual margin expansion
LONDON, Dec. 03, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WTW (NASDAQ: WTW) (the “Company”), a leading global advisory, broking and solutions company, today will host its 2024 Investor Day and provide an in-depth view of the Company’s strategy and plan for growth and value creation.
"Over the last three years, WTW has successfully executed on its Grow, Simplify and Transform strategic priorities to revitalize the company," said Carl Hess, WTW’s Chief Executive Officer. "We have grown through strategic investments in talent and technology, streamlined our operating model to drive efficiency and agility and transformed our cost structure and infrastructure. WTW has emerged more profitable and faster growing, and today we unveil our plans to further strengthen our business. We will build on our recent momentum to accelerate our performance, enhance efficiency to drive margin improvement and optimize our portfolio through organic and inorganic investment. We are moving forward from a position of strength and will continue to execute, innovate and create value for our shareholders.”
At today’s event, WTW will highlight its value creation drivers, including:
- Accelerating performance through innovation and expansion in attractive markets
- Enhancing efficiency to deliver continued margin expansion and free cash flow improvement
- Optimizing our portfolio to elevate financial performance and strategic position
- Generating attractive shareholder returns through a balanced capital allocation strategy
WTW also will announce today a return to the treaty reinsurance broking market through a joint venture with Bain Capital, one of the world’s leading private investment firms, with WTW holding a minority share. This new company will combine WTW’s rich history, leading global network and expertise in insurance broking, consulting and technology with Bain Capital’s scaled team of insurance industry experts and proven track-record of building and growing innovative insurance businesses across the value chain.
Webcast and Materials
WTW will broadcast the event live via webcast today starting at 9:30am EST. A live broadcast of the event and accompanying slide presentation will be available on WTW’s website at www.wtwco.com. We expect to post the slide presentation on our website at approximately 9:00am EST. To participate in the question-and-answer session, please register here. An online replay will be available at www.wtwco.com after the event concludes.
About WTW
At WTW (NASDAQ: WTW), we provide data-driven, insight-led solutions in the areas of people, risk and capital. Leveraging the global view and local expertise of our colleagues serving 140 countries and markets, we help organizations sharpen their strategy, enhance organizational resilience, motivate their workforce and maximize performance.
Working shoulder to shoulder with our clients, we uncover opportunities for sustainable success—and provide perspective that moves you.
Contacts
Claudia De La Hoz
WTW Investor Relations
email claudia.delahoz@wtwco.com
phone +1 215 246 6221
Miles Russell
WTW External Communication
email miles.russell@wtwco.com
phone +44 (0) 7903 262 118
WTW Forward-Looking Statements
This press release and our Investor Day presentations contain ‘forward-looking statements’ within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which are intended to be covered by the safe harbors created by those laws. These forward-looking statements include information about possible or assumed future results of our operations. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, that address activities, events, or developments that we expect or anticipate may occur in the future, including such things as our outlook, plans and references to future performance, including our future financial and operating results (including our revenue, costs, or margins), short-term and long-term financial goals, plans, objectives, expectations and intentions, including with respect to organic revenue growth, free cash flow generation, adjusted net revenue, adjusted operating margin and adjusted earnings per share; future share repurchases; demand for our services and competitive strengths; strategic goals; existing and evolving business strategies including those related to acquisition and disposition activity; the benefits of new initiatives; the benefits or success of our new reinsurance joint venture; the growth of our business and operations; the sustained health of our product, service, transaction, client, and talent assessment and management pipelines; our ability to successfully manage ongoing leadership, organizational, and technology changes, including investments in improving systems and processes; our ability to implement and realize anticipated benefits of any cost-savings initiatives including our multi-year operational transformation program; the potential impact of natural or man-made disasters like health pandemics and other world health crises; future capital expenditures; ongoing working capital efforts; the impact of changes to tax laws on our financial results; and our recognition of future impairment charges or write-off of receivables, are forward-looking statements. Also, when we use words such as ‘may’, ‘will’, ‘would’, ‘anticipate’, ‘believe’, ‘estimate’, ‘expect’, ‘intend’, ‘plan’, ‘continues’, ‘seek’, ‘target’, ‘goal’, ‘focus’, ‘probably’, or similar expressions, we are making forward-looking statements. Such statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of our management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. All forward-looking disclosure is speculative by its nature.
There are important risks, uncertainties, events and factors that could cause our actual results or performance to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements contained in this press release or our Investor Day presentations, including the following: our ability to successfully establish, execute and achieve our global business strategy as it evolves; our ability to fully realize the anticipated benefits of our growth strategy, including inorganic growth through acquisitions; our ability to realize benefits from our new reinsurance joint venture or other risks impacting the performance of or capital needs of the venture; our ability to make divestitures, including the pending sale of our TRANZACT business (inclusive of all the legal entities that comprise such business), or acquisitions, including our ability to integrate or manage acquired businesses or de-integrate businesses to be disposed, as well as our ability to identify and successfully execute on opportunities for strategic collaboration; our ability to consummate the pending sale of TRANZACT, and related incremental risks associated therewith including our ability to obtain approval (or for applicable waiting periods to expire) under the U.S. Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976; our ability to successfully manage ongoing organizational changes, including as part of our multi-year operational transformation program, investments in improving systems and processes, and in connection with our acquisition and divestiture activities, including the pending sale of TRANZACT, and related to changes in leadership in any of our businesses; risks relating to changes in our management structures and in senior leadership; our ability to achieve our short-term and long-term financial goals, such as with respect to our cash flow generation, and the timing with respect to such achievement; the risks related to changes in general economic conditions, business and political conditions, changes in the financial markets, inflation, credit availability, increased interest rates and changes in trade policies; the risks to our short-term and long-term financial goals from any of the risks or uncertainties set forth herein; the risks relating to the adverse impacts of macroeconomic trends, including inflation, changes in interest rates and trade policies, as well as political events, war, such as the Russia-Ukraine and Middle East conflicts, and other international disputes, terrorism, natural disasters, public health issues and other business interruptions on the global economy and capital markets, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and long-term goals; our ability to successfully hedge against fluctuations in foreign currency rates; the risks relating to the adverse impacts of natural or man-made disasters such as health pandemics and other world health crises on the demand for our products and services, our cash flows and our business operations; material interruptions to or loss of our information processing capabilities, or failure to effectively maintain and upgrade our information technology resources and systems and related risks of cybersecurity breaches or incidents; our ability to comply with complex and evolving regulations related to data privacy, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence; the risks relating to the transitional arrangements in effect subsequent to our previously-completed sale of Willis Re to Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., including the earn out in that transaction; significant competition that we face and the potential for loss of market share and/or profitability; the impact of seasonality and differences in timing of renewals and non-recurring revenue increases from disposals and book-of-business sales; the insufficiency of client data protection, potential breaches of information systems or insufficient safeguards against cybersecurity breaches or incidents; the risk of increased liability or new legal claims arising from our new and existing products and services, and expectations, intentions and outcomes relating to outstanding litigation; the risk of substantial negative outcomes on existing litigation or investigation matters; changes in the regulatory environment in which we operate, including, among other risks, the impacts of pending competition law and regulatory investigations; various claims, government inquiries or investigations or the potential for regulatory action; our ability to integrate direct-to-consumer sales and marketing solutions with our existing offerings and solutions; disasters or business continuity problems; our ability to successfully enhance our billing, collection and other working capital efforts, and thereby increase our free cash flow; our ability to properly identify and manage conflicts of interest; reputational damage, including from association with third parties; reliance on third-party service providers and suppliers; the loss of key employees or a large number of employees and rehiring rates; our ability to maintain our corporate culture; doing business internationally, including the impact of foreign currency exchange rates; compliance with extensive government regulation; the risk of sanctions imposed by governments, or changes to associated sanction regulations (such as sanctions imposed on Russia) and related counter-sanctions; our ability to effectively apply technology, data and analytics changes for internal operations, maintaining industry standards and meeting client preferences; changes and developments in the insurance industry or the U.S. healthcare system, including those related to Medicare, any legislative actions from the current U.S. Congress, the recent Final Rule from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for contract year 2025 and any judicial claims, rulings and appeals related thereto, and any other changes and developments in legal, regulatory, economic, business or operational conditions that could impact our Medicare benefits businesses ; the inability to protect our intellectual property rights, or the potential infringement upon the intellectual property rights of others; fluctuations in our pension assets and liabilities and related changes in pension income, including as a result of, related to, or derived from movements in the interest rate environment, investment returns, inflation, or changes in other assumptions that are used to estimate our benefit obligations and their effect on adjusted earnings per share; our capital structure, including indebtedness amounts, the limitations imposed by the covenants in the documents governing such indebtedness and the maintenance of the financial and disclosure controls and procedures of each; our ability to obtain financing on favorable terms or at all; adverse changes in our credit ratings; the impact of recent or potential changes to U.S. or foreign laws, and the enactment of additional, or the revision of existing, state, federal, and/or foreign laws and regulations, recent judicial decisions and development of case law, other regulations and any policy changes and legislative actions, including those that may impose additional excise taxes or impact our effective tax rate; U.S. federal income tax consequences to U.S. persons owning at least 10% of our shares; changes in accounting principles, estimates or assumptions; our recognition of non-cash pre-tax losses and related impairment charges in connection with our pending sale of TRANZACT and other future impairment charges or write-offs of receivables; risks relating to or arising from environmental, social and governance practices; fluctuation in revenue against our relatively fixed or higher than expected expenses; the risk that investment levels, including cash spending, to achieve additional expected savings under our multi-year operational transformation program; the laws of Ireland being different from the laws of the U.S. and potentially affording less protections to the holders of our securities; and our holding company structure potentially preventing us from being able to receive dividends or other distributions in needed amounts from our subsidiaries.
The foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive and new factors may emerge from time to time that could also affect actual performance and results. For more information, please see Part I, Item 1A in our Annual Report on Form 10-K, and our subsequent filings with the SEC. Copies are available online at www.sec.gov or www.wtwco.com.
Although we believe that the assumptions underlying our forward-looking statements are reasonable, any of these assumptions, and therefore also the forward-looking statements based on these assumptions, could themselves prove to be inaccurate. Given the significant uncertainties inherent in the forward-looking statements included in this document, our inclusion of this information is not a representation or guarantee by us that our objectives and plans will be achieved.
Our forward-looking statements speak only as of the date made, and we will not update these forward-looking statements unless the securities laws require us to do so. With regard to these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, the forward-looking events discussed in this presentation may not occur, and we caution you against unduly relying on these forward-looking statements.
WTW Non-GAAP Measures
In order to assist readers of our consolidated financial statements in understanding the core operating results that WTW’s management uses to evaluate the business and for financial planning, we present the following non-GAAP measures: (1) Constant Currency Change, (2) Organic Change, (3) Adjusted Operating Income/Margin, (4) Adjusted EBITDA/Margin, (5) Adjusted Net Income, (6) Adjusted Diluted Earnings Per Share, (7) Adjusted Income Before Taxes, (8) Adjusted Income Taxes/Tax Rate and (9) Free Cash Flow.
The Company believes that these measures are relevant and provide useful information widely used by analysts, investors and other interested parties in our industry to provide a baseline for evaluating and comparing our operating performance, and in the case of free cash flow, our liquidity results.
Reconciliations of the measures used in the Investor Day presentation are included in the accompanying appendix of the Investor Day materials.
The Company does not reconcile its forward-looking non-GAAP financial measures to the corresponding U.S. GAAP measures, due to variability and difficulty in making accurate forecasts and projections and/or certain information not being ascertainable or accessible; and because not all of the information, such as foreign currency impacts necessary for a quantitative reconciliation of these forward-looking non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable U.S. GAAP financial measure, is available to the Company without unreasonable efforts. For the same reasons, the Company is unable to address the probable significance of the unavailable information. The Company provides non-GAAP financial measures that it believes will be achieved, however it cannot accurately predict all of the components of the adjusted calculations and the U.S. GAAP measures may be materially different than the non-GAAP measures.
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