Marsh plans 2,500 more job cuts

Releasing its 2004 yearend results this week, Marsh says it may cut as many as 2,500 more jobs worldwide in an effort to reduce costs. This comes on top of 3,000 job cuts already made since the investigation into alleged big-rigging and conflict of interest was launched against the brokerage by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.The brokerage’s parent company, Marsh & McLennan, posted net income of US$180 million last year, compared to US$1.5 billion the year prior. This includes charges related to its US$850 million settlement with Spitzer, as well as the loss of contingent commissions, which the company stopped accepting shortly after the investigations began.MMC says the restructuring, including the 2,500 job cuts “should lead to annual expense savings exceeding US$375 million”, and this is in addition to its fourth-quarter 2004 restructuring moves which cost US$337 million, with anticipated annual savings of $400 million. The brokerage is also implementing a new “standardized commission structure”, and says through this new structure it “expects to recover a meaningful portion of its lost revenues within the next year”.