Willis Towers Watson

Willis Towers Watson

Willis Towers Watson was created in January 2016 through the $18 billion merger of Willis Group Holdings and Towers Watson, a combination designed to fuse insurance brokerage, risk advisory, and human capital analytics under one roof. CEO Carl Hess, who assumed the role in 2022 after leading the firm's investment, risk, and reinsurance division, oversees a business that generates the bulk of its revenue from corporate risk and broking, health and benefits consulting, and retirement advisory services. The firm shuttered its sale of the Willis Re unit to Arthur J. Gallagher for $3.25 billion in late 2021 after an antitrust challenge, preserving a sizable reinsurance brokerage, and later redirected its capital allocation toward organic technology investment and targeted bolt-on acquisitions. The firm's investment capabilities sit within its Retirement business, where it provides actuarial consulting, delegated investment management, and outsourced chief investment officer services to defined benefit and defined contribution pension schemes, predominantly in the UK, Canada, and the United States. Its delegated investment solutions practice manages portfolios across public equities, fixed income, private credit, real assets, and hedge funds, with a framework that emphasizes liability-driven investing and risk transfer strategies. In 2023, Willis Towers Watson expanded its global investment committee and deepened its research into climate transition analytics, aiming to embed sustainability metrics alongside traditional asset-liability modeling for institutional clients. With more than 45,000 employees and a presence in 140 countries, Willis Towers Watson operates from its London legal headquarters and its large U.S. hub in Arlington, Virginia. In May 2024, the firm agreed to acquire the non-US commercial lines business of Liberty Mutual for $1.2 billion, a transaction that materially broadens its corporate risk and broking footprint across Latin America and parts of Europe. The investment division has no separate disclosed AUM or deployment figure; the firm's material public disclosures aggregate revenue by segment rather than by assets under advisement or management, though its investment consulting relationships span pension assets totaling over $2 trillion globally. A structural differentiator for Willis Towers Watson is its simultaneous management of insurance distribution and institutional investment governance. Unlike a pure-play asset manager, the firm uses data from its corporate risk and broking operations to inform the actuarial and liability assumptions that underpin the investment strategies it recommends to pension clients. This loop—insurance claims data feeding investment risk models—creates a closed advisory cycle that few competitors can replicate, even if it has also drawn occasional regulatory scrutiny regarding conflicts of interest across lines of business. The firm is incorporated in Ireland with its primary stock listing on Nasdaq under ticker WTW.