Willis’s 200 job cuts to fall across the group

The 200 job cuts broking group Willis announced in its 2012 results will fall across the group, according to chief executive Dominic Casserley.

Responding to an analyst’s question about where the cuts would be made following the release of the results, Casserley said the headcount reductions would be “spread broadly” rather than fall on any specific units.

Willis employs 17,000 people worldwide.

The job cuts are being made following a review by Casserley’s new management team. Casserley took the reins of Willis from previous chief executive Joe Plumeri at the beginning of the year.

Willis announced the cuts in a lacklustre set of results. A series of one-off charges related to its North American operation pushed the global broking group into a 2012 loss of $446m (£285m) compared with a profit of $204m in 2011.

Stripping out the one-off items, Willis’s 2012 underlying profit was down 5.8% on 2011 at $454m, or $2.58 a share.

Casserley told analysts: “It goes without saying that we, as a management team, view this figure as a disappointment. It represents a declining group performance from the prior year and as such, is a result that we will work to reverse in the months and quarters ahead.”

Casserley said Willis’s fourth-quarter organic growth of 7.5% was cause for optimism, however.

He said: “Now, with the fourth-quarter results in hand, it is important to record [Plumeri’s] optimism, expressed on his last call, that certain metrics were pointing toward improving revenue growth. Today’s results bear out that optimism, particularly in terms of the group’s organic revenue growth.”

He added that the 7.5% organic increase “is the highest rate of growth for Willis since the third-quarter of 2006”.