Top 50 Brokers 2016: #5 Willis

UK chief executive: Nicolas Aubert

Brokerage: £601.7m

Management

Willis’s $18bn (£12bn) merger with corporate services group Towers Watson was formally completed in January this year. Towers Watson chief executive John Haley took over as chief executive of the combined group, with Willis’s former chief executive Dominic Casserley as his deputy.

Former AIG UK chief executive Nicolas Aubert continues as head of Willis GB and chief executive of Willis Ltd, the group’s principal UK-regulated entity, running the broker’s UK retail business and its London specialty division.

Aubert was also named as chairman of the London Market Group in April. It will be his job to shepherd the London market through the forthcoming Brexit process.

Strategy

The Towers Watson merger was designed to give Willis a shot in the arm after years underperforming its rivals. The deal looked like a “me-too” move by Willis, combining insurance broking and consultancy in a way that has proved powerful at rivals Aon and Marsh & McLennan Companies.

As the newly combined group knits together over the coming months it will be clear whether it has delivered the crossover benefits it was designed to achieve.

The UK operations had a disappointing 2015 extending into the first quarter of 2016, with commissions and fees falling. But the combined Willis Towers Watson group said the UK business was the main cause of the 1% organic growth its retail broking division achieved in the second quarter of 2016.

Even so, Willis has lost fourth place to fast-growing rival Arthur J Gallagher.