Aon seeks new ownership for p&c business

Aon Corporation (NYSE: AOC) is seeking a new owner for its warranty, credit insurance and property & casualty underwriting businesses.
Greg Case, Aon’s president and CEO, says “by exploring alternatives, we expect to determine if the potential of our warranty, credit and property & casualty businesses can be more fully realized under different ownership.”
Aon Corporation provides risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, human capital and management consulting, and specialty insurance underwriting. Aon has 47,000 employees working in 500 offices spread across more than 120 countries.
Aon recently reported a third-quarter income of $122 million and adopted a $1-billion share repurchasing program.
“Our third quarter operating results show significant improvement in organic revenue growth in our Americas retail brokerage operation, driven by improved client retention and new business,” Case says in a release. “This performance is particularly noteworthy given the continuing softness in insurance premium rates, which affected growth in our international brokerage and reinsurance units.
“Our insurance underwriting operations performed well, with improved top- and bottom-line growth in both of the principal subsegments.”
The company announced it is implementing a three-year restructuring plan, which is intended to realize $150 million in annualized cost savings by 2008.
The restructuring plan includes job eliminations beginning in the third quarter of 2005 and continuing into 2007, the company announced. An estimated 1,400 positions will be eliminated, including a group of approximately 750 U.K. positions affected by that component of the restructuring initiative announced on October 5, 2005.