Marsh Hiring Duperreault as CEO
Marsh & McLennan Cos announced yesterday that it is hiring Brian Duperreault as its new chief executive. Mr. Duppereault had successfully ran insurer ACE Ltd., and Marsh hopes this move will help assuage shareholders who have been frustrated by the company's poor performance.
Some of those shareholders have called for breaking up the company, which includes not only the core insurance brokerage, Marsh Inc., but units such as Kroll, a corporate investigations operation, and Mercer, a human-resources consulting concern. In recent weeks, rival Willis Group Holding Ltd. made an overture about a possible merger of the two companies.
However the naming of Mr. Duperreault sends another signal: that the board believes the company can be fixed. Mr. Duperreault joins Daniel Glaser, another respected insurance industry insider, who was hired in December to run the brokerage.
"My first priority is to make sure that they're all operating well," Mr. Duperreault said of the company's various parts, in an interview yesterday. "As a CEO, and as a board, you are constantly asking yourself about the portfolio mix in the company...That question never goes away." He declined to discuss the Willis inquiry.
Mr. Duperreault, 60 years old, is taking over from Michael Cherkasky, a former prosecutor who got the top job amid a bid-rigging investigation led by then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in 2004. That probe led Marsh to agree to an $850 million settlement. Mr. Cherkasky wasn't able to turn the company around, and the board announced it was looking for a new CEO in December, shortly after Mr. Glaser's appointment.
Source: Source: Wall Street Journal | Published on January 31, 2008
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