Willis Towers Watson reports revenue up 5%

Willis Towers Watson celebrate "outstanding finish to a strong year" as CEO highlights healthy revenue growth in 2018 results.

Year end results for the company showed reported revenue was up 5 percent (excluding the impact of ASC 606) to $8.6 billion in 2018 from $8.2 billion in 2017. This also represented an increase of 5 percent in organic growth, the company said.

In Q4, reported revenue rose 3 percent to $2.1 billion compared with $2.08 billion for the same period the year before. The company said this increase also represented 6 percent organic growth.

Net income (attributable to Willis Towers Watson) increased 36 percent to $775 million in 2018 from $568 million the year before. However net income figures for Q4 were $169 million down from $245 million for Q4 2017.

“Our performance this quarter provided an outstanding finish to a strong year,” said John Haley Willis Towers Watson chief executive officer. “We are very pleased with our progress in 2018. We concluded our integration efforts and delivered on our financial commitments; with strong top line growth, meaningful profitability improvement and robust cash flow growth. This momentum, combined with our continued focus on executing our strategy, leaves us very well-positioned for another year of operational success and driving shareholder value.”

In its results statement on M&A activity and the progress of the integration program, the company said: “The merger integration program concluded in 2018 with in-year integration expense of $202 million. We delivered more than $190 million of annualized savings through 2018, which exceeded the $125 million in annualized savings we committed to when the merger closed. We are not expecting additional integration expenses as we look forward to 2019; instead, any integration-related expenses will be included in the segment results in the future.”

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