MITRE MINING CORPORATION LTD (MMC) — Q2 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning, and thank you for joining us to discuss our second quarter results reported earlier today. I'm Dan Glaser, President and CEO of Marsh & McLennan. Joining me on the call today is Mark McGivney, our CFO; and the CEOs of our businesses, John Doyle of Marsh; Peter Hearn of Guy Carpenter; Martine Ferland of Mercer; and Nick Studer of Oliver Wyman. Also with us this morning is Sarah Dewitt, Head of Investor Relations. I'd like to welcome Nick, who became CEO of Oliver Wyman on July 1. Nick has led many of Oliver Wyman’s major practices in his 23 years with the business, and I look forward to seeing Oliver Wyman continue to grow and thrive under his leadership. On behalf of the Executive Committee, I also want to thank Scott McDonald for his many contributions during his distinguished career at the firm. Marsh & McLennan had an outstanding second quarter. We are well positioned and benefiting from an abundance of opportunities. We are stronger and have broader capabilities, benefiting from what may be the strongest economic rebound in nearly four decades, led by our largest region, the U.S. There is high demand for our advice and solutions in this time of uncertainty and in the face of challenging market conditions. We are seeing a flight to quality and stability, which is contributing to high levels of business growth and client retention. It’s helping us attract talent, and there's a long runway for growth as we think about major protection gaps around the world, new emerging risks, digitization, the workforce of the future, and under-penetrated markets such as small commercial. We are focused on capitalizing on these opportunities, and I am proud of our execution in the quarter. We generated record second quarter revenue and earnings, the best underlying growth of any quarter in two decades for an excellent year. The strength of our results was broad-based, with each of our businesses and virtually all of our major geographies seeing an acceleration in growth. Our adjusted EPS increased by an impressive 33%, and we generated margin expansion despite challenging expense comparisons.

Thank you, Dan, and good morning. Our results were excellent, with record second quarter revenue earnings, the best quarterly underlying growth in two decades, meaningful margin expansion, and significant growth in adjusted earnings. Highlights from our second quarter performance included the strongest underlying growth since the first quarter of 2003, the strongest in Guy Carpenter in 15 years, a solid rebound of 6% at Mercer, and record reported underlying growth in Oliver Wyman. Second quarter growth in adjusted earnings per share was also impressive, rising at the fastest pace of any quarter in more than a decade. Consolidated revenue increased 20% in the second quarter to $5 billion, reflecting underlying growth of 13%. Operating income in the quarter was $1.2 billion, an increase of 39% over the prior year. Adjusted operating income increased 24% to $1.2 billion, and our adjusted operating margin increased to 26.4%.

Thanks, Mark, and operator, we are ready to begin Q&A.

Hi, thanks. Good morning. My first question is on the organic growth outlook, recognizing that the comps do get a little bit harder in the second half of the year, but you know, the Q3 was still negative last year. So, I guess my question is, given what you know now, it sounds like you guys are positive but a little bit cautious about the economy. You know, is it possible, it sounds like it’s still possible we could see double-digit organic growth over the remaining two quarters of the year?

So, we obviously, as Mark was saying, we've got momentum, and we feel very good about how we're positioned, and we're not that fearful about the economy. We are concerned about continuing waves of COVID, but you know, the economies have adjusted somewhat in many parts of the world and are more resilient certainly than they were in the spring of 2020. So, the economic impact won't be as severe as what we've seen, even with continuing waves of COVID. I mean, last quarter, Elyse, we said that 2021 growth would be at the high end of our 3% to 5% range and possibly higher. I think at 9% underlying growth through six months, it's safe to say that we're in the higher category. You know, we feel very good about our position. We're going to have a very good year. And 2021 is just going to set a new base for us. We intend to grow revenues and earnings in 2022 as well. So, this is not going to be a one-year wonder.

Okay, that's helpful. And then my second question was on the margin side. So, you guys, you know, Dan, I think you both said that, you know, some T&E has not fully come back, but also, you know, the pretty impressive revenue growth helped drive that margin improvement as well. So, we think about the back half of the year and T&E coming back. Can you just help us think through, you know, the resulting impact on the margins, especially if revenue remains strong? Maybe the second half could also see some margin improvement?

Well, I'll start by saying that we absolutely expect margin expansion in the year, and this will be our 14th consecutive year of margin expansion. Margins are an outcome of how we run the business. I mean, we grow our revenue every year at a pace that's faster than how we grow our expenses. I think you may be overly optimistic about T&E really roaring back in the back half of this year. I think it's going to be very gradual and slow, actually. And I think that companies, not just Marsh & McLennan, will travel with more purpose and will be more thoughtful about traveling. I think clients will expect the same of providers like ours. And so, you know, we do expect and hope that over time, you know, T&E gets back to, kind of 2019 levels, but we may be quite a way away from that point in time. You know, we were very pleased with our margin expansion in the quarter. And as you said, that was driven by our top line, like where it largely came from. It helped us – that strong top line helped us overcome a comparable, which was a minus 5% expense. I mean, look at our expenses are up 30 basis points, but that's on top of 430 basis points margin expansion in the second quarter of last year. So, we like where we are. We will grow margins for the year. It may not be every quarter; I don't know that right now, but ultimately we feel good for the year. Next question, please.

Hi, good morning. So, just on organic growth again, obviously you mentioned easy comps. Were there any other tailwinds, such as maybe pent-up demand in certain industries or just the benefit of higher price hikes in PNC that might not repeat to the same extent in future periods?

Yeah. The high levels of growth were not just because of easy comps at all. I mean, Guy Carpenter’s comp was a 9 last year; you know, March was a 1. So, it was not exactly layoffs in terms of comps. I think that the real momentum right now, and the U.S. economy is getting stronger, is well behind us, and the combined organization is emerging from the pandemic stronger than what we went in and focus on our front foot. New business generation was terrific across the businesses. And our growth was broad-based. Retention is strong, pricing is a tailwind, and we're benefiting from disruption, and flight to quality and stability. So, there are a lot of factors that are underpinning our revenue growth, and we feel very good about revenue growth into the future.

Okay. And then on share buybacks, I think you spent over $300 million in 2Q and over $400 million for the first half. And that's a higher pace than you typically did prior to the pandemic. So, is it more of a catch up from not buying back stock last year or is – should we assume this is going to be more of a run rate going forward?

We're not catching up; every year is its own adventure. Ultimately, as we've said before, we start every period believing in a balanced approach to capital management, not that we'll spend the same money in each of our three principal buckets of dividends, acquisitions, and share repurchase. But we don't have an approach that is weighted to one versus the other. Share purchase, in large part, is a function of what our acquisition activity looks like. You know, every year might not be perfectly balanced, but the first half was pretty balanced. I mean, our uses of $478 million in dividends, $434 million in share repurchases, and $473 million in acquisitions. So, it is a balanced approach, and I think you’ll see that from us. I mean, at the end, as Mark was saying, we have $3.5 billion or more to deploy. We are a cash generation type of company. So, this is again, not a one-year wonder. This is an every year; we're going to put money toward our dividend. We're going to grow our dividend. We're going to acquire high-quality firms, and we're going to buy back our own shares. I mean, that's going to be year-after-year.

Okay, thank you.

Next question, please.

Hi, thanks. Good morning. I wanted to talk a little bit more about the expenses. Just the other operating expenses were up, you know, not as much as I would have thought. I mean, it sounds like T&E continues to be a benefit. That's not going to roar back, but still up only 6% year-over-year despite a pretty favorable or pretty tough comp on the expense side. I'm wondering if there was anything else one-off in there? And relatedly, I guess, you know, are you guys realizing more sustainable expense saves as a result of some of the operational changes due to COVID-19? Like, you know, real estate expense saves and that sort of thing?

It's a good question, David. We certainly are going to realize a number of efficiency gains over the next several years. As you mentioned, real estate, more purposeful T&E or traveling in general, and hopefully as well. Also, you know, we've been undergoing some significant modernization projects on technology and operations, and so that – that will benefit us more in the future than it's doing right now. The biggest growth in our expenses, frankly, is compensation. And I think that's a good thing as our variable cost is going up along with our growth. We're in the market; we're hiring. I mean, in the first six months of this year, our headcount has grown nearly 2,000. Most of that is coming within Marsh, as they are capitalizing on the opportunity they see with their two biggest competitors having some element of distraction and uncertainty. So, you know, at the end, it's more expense related to headcount and expense related to compensation that's where the growth of expense is coming from. And we feel pretty good about that; you know, we can manage that over time. But we’re in the market right now, you know, building our business and building on the already industry-leading pool of talent we have.

Great. Yeah, that's good to hear. I guess maybe just a follow-up on that headcount. I mean, I think, you know, that 2,000 headcount growth this year is definitely more than I was thinking. How much of a tail does that have? Like, you know, is that something that you think can continue through the end of the year, or is, you know, is that something that you have like this, you know, period of time where the consolidation is sort of in, and there's some uncertainty there, and you guys are capitalizing on that? And then once that's over, it's, you know, sort of back to normal course, where you guys are still getting talent, it's just not as significant?

I think talent begets talent. You know, people are attracted to work in environments with smart, creative, dedicated people. The more people like that you have, the more talent you attract. It's clear that the issues of Willis in particular, in Aon, are creating a short-term opportunity that will run its course one way or the other. I mean, I was just looking at the stats recently; our hiring from Aon and Willis post-announcement is three times higher on a net basis than it was in the 16 months prior to the announcement. So that's not going to run forever, but ultimately, we're doing our best to continue to build capabilities within our already formidable firm.

Thanks. So, two questions, I think related to what you were talking about. First, when you talk about the flight to stability, was that a headwind or a tailwind to margins in the quarter?

I think the flight to stability indicates that our account protection levels in our new business are higher than they otherwise would be. So, that would be a benefit in not only revenue, but a benefit to margins because the revenue is higher than it would otherwise be. It's not having an impact on expense.

Okay, perfect. And then obviously, the reinsurance organic growth has been fantastic for a long time. There seems like there are a lot of new companies out there. I was hoping you could give us a little bit more color on what's happening in the competitive environment?

You know, we're very pleased with Guy Carpenter’s performance over a number of years, but I'll hand off to Peter so we can dig in a little bit deeper. So, Peter, you want to take that?

Yeah. Thanks, Dan. Thanks, Meyer. We've enjoyed a terrific run over the past several years. Our model is based on consistent growth over a long period of time, and we're able to capitalize on that model as a result of a very compelling proposition. We are disciplined around both sales and pipeline that have resulted in new business wins. As we look at our new business wins over the past several quarters, Meyer, the amount of new business coming from new clients has grown significantly, to the extent that in Q2 2021, 56% of our revenue growth from new business came from new clients. So, you know, we're seeing continued growth based on the model that we built. Yes, there are a number of new challenger brokers out there, and we have to be mindful; you know, all of our competitors are worthy adversaries. But we believe we have a very compelling proposition that over a long period of time has produced sustained growth and opportunity for us on a continuing basis.

Okay, fantastic. Thank you.

Alright, thanks Meyer. Next question, please.

Yeah, thanks. Two quick ones here. First one, Dan, I'm wondering if you could break down at Marsh? Just generally speaking, what the impact in organic revenue growth was from rate versus call exposure growth versus market share gains, just generally speaking?

If you can speak up just a little bit more? I got the question, but it was a little faint. I'll hand over to John, but you know, I’ll just start by saying how thrilled we all are that in our 150th year anniversary at the company, we could grow the GAAP top line by 20%. In Marsh in particular, the best growth in a couple of decades. This is a phenomenal overall performance. But John, you want to break down the growth a bit?

Sure. Brian, thanks for the question. As Dan and Mark both mentioned, we certainly benefited from the economic rebound, relatively soft prior year, proud of that growth in the second quarter last year during the downturn. The pricing environment that Dan talked about a little bit in his earlier remarks, about 50% of our revenue is sensitive to PNC pricing. While rate increases have come down modestly compared to the fourth quarter of last year and the first quarter of this year, they held steady where we're sensitive to pricing, where we get commission, from a number of different areas. I also want to emphasize that we executed really well in the quarter. Our team is even stronger than it’s ever been. They are highly engaged, focused on delivering for our clients. The market remains challenging. It's, again, while rates aren't nearly as much as they were before, they are quite difficult. I do think there's been a bit of catch up, you know, in some markets, there's a fair amount of new business. In our results, whether it's in transaction risk in cyber or in construction, there are examples of where that is the case. But again, we're very pleased with the results in the quarter.

Anything else, Brian?

Great. That's great. Thanks. And then the second question is, Dan, can you talk a little bit about the M&A environment here, kind of what it looks like right now, and also have the issues that Aon and Willis have kind of run into with some regulatory approvals, has that at all changed your kind of strategic view of M&A right now?

No, it had no impact. Our philosophy in M&A is basically we like buying firms that are high quality with a leadership team that generally remains in place, and recurring revenue streams, high cash generation, low capital requirements, and a history of success that sets it up for us. And then it’s really getting to know each other over a long stretch of time and figuring out, it's not us buying, and it's not them selling; we're deciding to come together. We believe the outcome for our clients and our people will be better together than separate. And that's the approach. The pipeline remains strong for us throughout our businesses. In fact, last year was the highest acquired revenue within Marsh & McLennan agency, which has been more than a decade long, in terms of strategy building. So, we feel very good about that. I mean, obviously, there's a lot of capital in the world. So, multiples are higher than what we would like. We need to be very selective and very careful in our evaluation of pro forma results because most of the companies we've looked at are private. But our strategy for a long period of time has been more of a string of pearls, not something where it is one mega type of acquisition, but it's building the company's capabilities. Geography, you know, JLT was an anomaly in some ways, and it was perhaps our biggest acquisition in history. And that acquisition, because we had been cultivating a broad relationship for a long period of time, we were coming together because we thought the combination was going to be better for clients. You're seeing a manifestation of that. Growth is better because of our combination with JLT, particularly in our specialty operation. And so, you know, that's kind of where we are. Our thoughts on M&A have not changed.

Great. Thank you.

Next question, please.

Hey, thanks. Good morning. I guess, just thinking about consulting. A couple of things. First of all, with Oliver Wyman, the 28 organic, just any color on I guess how you're thinking about that? Any visibility on, sort of the back half of the year? And I guess, just within Mercer, it sounds it has been some focus on the call about comps becoming more difficult. Is that obvious that the comps get that much more challenging there? So, I’m – maybe curious if you, Martine, could give us some perspective on, you know, sort of how business developed in the three months of the quarter and where we're at now, looking at the back half?

I’m glad, Ryan, that you have sort of consulted. It is a big part of our business and a big part of our performance. You know, I’ll hand it off to Nick first and then over to Martine, but let me just say a couple of comments first. One, we've mentioned before that Oliver Wyman will tend to be our fastest grower over long stretches of time, but with more volatility. And so yeah, look back to the second quarter of last year, minus 13. So, we love the 28%, but ultimately you put them together, and it's 6% over one of the more difficult periods in recent human history. And so yeah, we tick the box on that. And that's a terrific result. Mercer on the other hand, Mercer is in terrific growth businesses, health, wealth, career, and you know, Martine does some great underpinning work. If you go back to the end of 2019, you know, 2% growth, 3% growth, and 4% growth in sequential quarters, and then 5% growth in the first quarter of 2020. Then the pandemic struck as expected in some ways, and held up very well with a minus 3 throughout last year. So, Martine and Mercer are going back to a terrific result in the second quarter. It is sort of getting back to the same pace or getting back to the same processes that existed pre-pandemic. Let's start with Nick, and then we'll go to Martine. Nick?

Thank you very much. Yes, as Dan said, we're thrilled with the performance. In terms of where it's coming from, it's in an incredibly broad base. The growth in the quarter was highest in the regions and the sectors which have been most adversely affected by the pandemic, and then referred to the comp. The Americas, particularly the U.S. have seen a very sharp rebound in client demand, both through the economic conditions and business confidence rising materially. If you take, for example, the transportation sector, which was the sector that suffered the greatest impact from the pandemic last year, it's springing back very strongly. A lot of outside of the Americas growth in Europe and in the Asia Pacific region were also quite robust. Across all major industry groups, financial services, consumer, industrial healthcare, all actually going remarkably at similar rates. What we do think the outsized growth in Q2 was an outlier, we see business confidence remaining high as global economic conditions improve. We see even some semblance of return to normality in some of the places we operate. This is also applied in the labor market for the skill set that our consultants possess. So, we have a decent outlook for the business for the rest of the year.

Thanks, Nick. Martine?

Thanks for asking the question. Similar to Oliver Wyman, the growth in the quarter really came from all along the business and all of the regions. But I think it's worth spending a moment; we have said through the pandemic that this is where we have the most discretionary projects that are a little bit more connected to our Oliver Wyman would be operating. And it's absolutely come back. Times have restarted projects. There's a lot of demand out there. We’ve been helping clients with their post-pandemic workforce. There is a war for talent out there. Demand for rewards, demands for skills, skill sets, assessment, engagement, transformation, as companies accelerate their adaptation to digital and newer technologies. So, that is sustaining our business. We see strong sales, and good momentum for the rest of the year. I want to spend another moment on our wealth business; I think 4% growth in the quarter is noteworthy. We have not seen that since Q4 2017. Again, all in our wealth business did well, particularly our OCIO business, which is the part of the business where we implement asset management for our clients. You see the flight to strong governance there, deep manager research, combined with questions and helping clients with ESG and better investment modeling.

Thanks, Nick, thanks Martine.

Thanks. Got it. And then just a follow-up for Dan and maybe John Doyle as well. Can you just, I guess, give us an update on the strategic importance of using wholesale brokers on the PNC side and maybe how that's evolved over time?

Yeah. I'll take it and hand it over to John. It’s an interesting question. I think wholesale brokers in a lot of ways are like the specialists in a lot of different areas with some really good skills. Those are exactly what I think back in my career, what wholesale really meant 10 or 20 years ago. I think specialty placement might be more appropriate. But John, you want to talk about the use of wholesalers?

Sure. You know, it's largely focused on specialty capabilities. For the most part, we use wholesalers when we need to access certain markets, certain specialty insurance. In particular, respect their distribution access to certain brokers. For the most part, that happens in the United States; there's almost no utilization for us. Like I say, in the United States, risk kind of originates from the United States. To some extent, it happens in the London marketplace as well, but we have a preferred relationship with a couple of other specialty wholesalers and focus our efforts on making sure we're delivering the same quality outcome for our clients that we came back from by utilizing our own teams.

Next question, please.

Good morning, and congrats on the quarter. My question is about the potential persistency of some of these market share gains. I'm thinking about back to the JLT acquisition, and it seemed to me there was a little bit of drag on organic growth for about a year as things sort of moved through the system and the integration happened. Do you think there's a read-through to what's happening for you in a positive sense today that as you hire these new people, it really takes kind of a year for the full revenue impact? So that’s kind of how we should think about the benefit of the flight to quality? It’s kind of a year-by-year kind of effect?

Yeah, I would start, Paul, by saying, you know, we're an awfully big company. So, we make decisions to add to our talent, capability, and our broad capabilities more generally, to build skills, content, etc. As opposed to necessarily saying, oh, that person is going to cost us this amount, and we expect them to produce this amount over the course of the next couple of years. Your basic premise that will be to hire senior people, that generally you expense first, and then some revenue might come later. Yeah, if the premise is true, as they get involved with the firm more broadly. But unlike some of the firms, we're not just focused on, you know, this is a producer; this is what they think their book of businesses is. We are much more of a content culture building capabilities. But John, what are your thoughts on that?

Market share is a hard thing to measure. I've read some estimates of personal insurance premiums will grow about 10% this year. So, if you use that as a proxy for the market, then, yes, we can gain market share. You know, I mentioned earlier, we're picking up some new business, primarily construction. Our win rates are up when I look at the success in RFPs; it's up compared to historical levels, and the number of offensive RFPs and defensive RFPs is considerably better, which it’s been past. All I think speaks to the quality of the time. At the same time, we're investing in talent that's going to drive future growth. So, we have good momentum, and we're excited about what that means for us.

Anything else, Paul?

Yeah, just a little bit more on the market share. It looks like it came everywhere in terms of gains in your businesses. Is that really a fair sense? Or were there some benefits to specific businesses that you?

This is the kind of business growth that we've seen, certainly, since I've been at the company. And so it is occurring in many different spots. I'd put it down to one of our fundamental growth strategies being market risk strategy and people. You know, companies, whether you're in a large account segment, the middle market segment, or the small segment, if you work for an organization or government, you have to focus on those three things. They're completely relevant to how you approach the business. We've got competitive advantages that start with the quality of our people, our culture. Large capabilities have been further enhanced through the acquisitions we've done over the last number of years, most notably JLT. Our global footprint provides us with competitive advantages. We don't have a lot of competitors in any way that can match up to those advantages. We continue to acquire best-in-class businesses. Our number one focus is on quality and a history of success. This is particularly true in the middle market brokerage, and we've got all kinds of opportunities. We spoke about cyber and climate in our scripts for digital, small commercial. Risk awareness in general is much higher. We're – as I've mentioned before, the pandemic may have brought us closer than we ever were before. We're more connected and more collaborative than ever before. We’re leveraging our combined strengths like never before. All of those factors come together, and we are a more formidable force in the market. We're going to win business, and you know, that's going to continue.

Thank you. That's great.

Next question.

Okay. Well, that's a first. Okay, but I appreciate everyone joining us on the call this morning. I want to thank our 70,000 colleagues for their commitment, hard work, and dedication to Marsh & McLennan, and I look forward to speaking with you next quarter. Thank you very much.