Aon - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Executive Summary

• Q1 2025 delivered 16% total revenue growth to $4.729B, with 5% organic revenue growth; adjusted EPS was $5.67 and adjusted operating margin was 38.4%, while GAAP EPS fell 17% YoY to $4.43 due to higher amortization and interest from the NFP acquisition.
• Against S&P Global consensus, Aon missed on adjusted EPS ($5.67 vs $6.04*) and revenue ($4.73B vs $4.86B*); EBITDA was also below consensus ($1.84B vs $1.93B*). FX translation was a notable headwind to EPS and operating income. Bolded: EPS miss, revenue miss (Values retrieved from S&P Global).
• Management reaffirmed full‑year 2025 guidance: mid‑single‑digit or greater organic growth, 80–90bps adjusted margin expansion, strong adjusted EPS growth, and double‑digit free cash flow growth; Q2 2025 adjusted EPS growth guided to 15–18% off a $2.93 baseline.
• Capital allocation remained disciplined: $397M returned to shareholders (incl. $250M buybacks) and a 10% dividend increase to $0.745; leverage targeted to reach 2.8–3.0x by Q4 2025, supported by NFP tuck-in M&A and restructuring savings.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Adjusted operating income grew 12% YoY to $1.816B, driven by 5% organic growth, NFP contribution, and $40M net restructuring savings (ABS efficiencies).
• Segment strength: Commercial Risk and Reinsurance posted 5% and 4% organic growth, respectively; Wealth led at 8% on NFP asset inflows and regulatory demand; Health grew 5% on global health and benefits demand.
• Management tone confident; CEO Greg Case: “We are reaffirming our 2025 guidance… reflecting the resilience and strength of our business and financial model,” highlighting ABS analytics and client demand across Risk and Human Capital. CFO underscored 85bps margin expansion contribution from restructuring in Q1 and reiterated full-year 80–90bps margin expansion target.

What Went Wrong

• GAAP EPS declined 17% YoY (to $4.43) and operating margin fell 510bps to 30.9% due to NFP-related amortization and higher interest expense; adjusted margin fell 130bps to 38.4% YoY.
• Cash from operations ($140M) and free cash flow ($84M) were down 55% and 68% YoY on higher incentive, interest, and restructuring payments; fiduciary investment income dipped to $67M (-15% YoY).
• Consensus misses: adjusted EPS and revenue below S&P Global expectations; EBITDA also below consensus (FX headwinds cited, plus timing impact from a large multi‑year reinsurance extension). Bolded: EPS miss, revenue miss (Values retrieved from S&P Global).

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning, and thank you for holding. Welcome to Aon’s first quarter 2025 conference call. At this time, all parties will be in listen-only mode until the question-and-answer portion of today's call. I would also like to remind all parties that this call is being recorded. If anyone has an objection, you may disconnect your line at this time. It is important to note that some of the comments in today's call may constitute certain statements that are forward-looking in nature, as defined by the Private Securities Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results that differ materially from historical results or those anticipated. Information concerning risk factors that could cause such differences are described in the press release covering our fourth quarter 2024 results, as well as having been posted on our website.

Now, it is my pleasure to turn the call over to Greg Case, CEO of Aon.

Greg Case (CEO)

Good morning, and welcome to our first quarter earnings call. I'm joined by Edmund Reese, our CFO. As in previous quarters, we posted a detailed financial presentation on our website, which Edmund will reference in his remarks. We want to start by acknowledging our colleague and friend, Eric Andersen. We announced last month that Eric transitioned from his role as president to serve as a senior advisor. In his 28 years with Aon, Eric played a significant role in advancing our Aon United strategy, and he's been a leader helping execute our 3x3 plan to deliver more value to our clients and positioning Aon for continued growth. Thank you, Eric, for your leadership and friendship. Turning to our financial performance, we continue to build momentum in year two of our 3x3 plan, and our execution is translating into results that are fully in line with our financial objectives.

Our team delivered another quarter of mid-single digit growth, with organic revenue growth of 5%. With this organic growth and the addition of NFP, we delivered 16% total revenue growth, a 38.4% margin, contributing to 12% adjusted operating income growth and adjusted EPS of $5.67. Finally, we generated $80 million in free cash flow and returned $397 million in capital to shareholders. Notably, we also announced that we're increasing our quarterly dividend by 10%, the 15th consecutive year of dividend growth. The quarter's strong operating performance marks a start to 2025 on track and right in line with our expectations. Importantly, we achieved these results in an unpredictable and turbulent business environment that is creating greater complexity for our clients. Within the four mega trends that we reference—trade, technology, weather, and workforce—trade is currently and clearly top of mind.

Today, tariffs have had limited direct impact on our business and financial results. Over the medium term, while there could be impact to client discretionary spending, we believe the demand benefit is also meaningful, given the trust we've established with our clients, positioning us to support and help them adapt to new trade rules and to mitigate risk and capture new opportunities. For many clients, tariffs have challenged the global landscape, posing a significant risk. Against this challenge, we are arming clients with real-time insights they need to make better decisions. A few examples include using our supply chain risk diagnostic tool to advise clients on effectively diversifying or reconfiguring their supply chain operations. We're tailoring credit solutions like political risk insurance, surety bonds, and trade credit insurance, and advising on human capital issues like restructuring employee stock grants.

Further, our expertise and ABS capabilities are helping clients fortify their operations to maintain stability despite trade disruptions. Ultimately, our unique and connected capability and the increased complexity of the global trade environment is driving demand for Aon's advice and solutions. On our Q4 call, we highlighted that on the back of strong performance in year one of our 3x3 plan, we were entering 2025 with great momentum, and we've continued to execute in the first quarter, using ABS capabilities to expand with and better serve clients, attracting client-facing talent in priority areas, and utilizing exceptional NFP capability to accelerate middle market growth, which today reached the one-year anniversary as part of Aon. Specifically on NFP, we couldn't be more thrilled to have NFP as part of the Aon family.

As we reflect on this year-one milestone, we highlight that the business continues to perform in line with high expectations. Our progress, guided by the principle of independent and connected, is right on track. Producer retention continues to be higher than pre-deal, and the NFP acquisition engine continues to add high-quality middle market EBITDA through targeted acquisitions with a strong pipeline for the remainder of 2025. This quarter is a testament to the power of the combined NFP and Aon, as we absorb the peak impact of an increased share count from the transaction. With the acquisition now annualized, we expect NFP's contribution to become even more meaningful as we progress through 2025. Further, on the important people front, we made significant progress on our talent investment by hiring in priority areas like construction and charity.

Colleagues are choosing Aon because they see the power of our capability and connected firm, enabled by ABS, to win new clients and better serve existing clients. Finally, to connect all the dots with one specific client example, we expanded our relationship with a major risk capital client who is facing soaring healthcare costs due to high-cost claimants. We won their human capital mandate using our health risk analyzer to provide insights and predictive analytics on the client's future claims, helping them manage both their risk and benefits budget. This example highlights the strength of our 3x3 plan to drive financial results. As we look ahead, while it's clear we're operating in a complex economic environment, we remain confident in the resilience and strength of our business and financial model. We have a track record of sustained performance across bull markets, recessions, economic shocks, and changing political landscapes.

Our integrated solutions and Aon United strategy bring differentiated and substantial client benefit in periods of greatest uncertainty. We view the current environment as an opportunity to further strengthen our client relationships and reinforce Aon as a trusted advisor. In our daily interactions with clients, we have not seen a pullback in demand. Rather, we see an increase in clients looking for guidance and offerings to navigate the increasing complexity of their business challenges. As a result, we are reaffirming our 2025 full-year guidance, including mid-single digit or greater organic revenue growth, margin expansion, strong earnings growth, and double-digit free cash flow growth. To summarize, we want to reiterate our conviction about the opportunity ahead. Aon's advice and solutions are even more valuable to clients as they navigate increased complexity in their businesses.

We continue to see momentum across our business, from the high-quality talent we're attracting to Aon to the progress we're making to attack the $31 billion middle market opportunity to major wins with both new and existing clients. We remain on track to deliver against our 2025 financial goals. Of course, none of this would be possible without our global team. We want to thank our 60,000 colleagues around the world for their commitment to excellence and innovation. Your extraordinary leadership and hard work is what enables us to deliver for our clients. Finally, to focus further on our long-term strategy and opportunity, we hope you can join us for our investor day on June 9th.

Edmund and I, and the senior executives leading our 3x3 plan, look forward to sharing details about Aon United as a powerful asset and how we'll continue to drive sustainable long-term growth and create value for our shareholders. It promises to be a very productive event. Now, I'll turn the call to Edmund for more detailed review of our financials and outlook. Edmund.

Edmund Reese (CFO)

Thank you, Greg, and good morning, everyone. I'm excited to be here discussing the results for the first quarter of 2025. Before jumping into the details, it's important to filter the quarterly noise both within our first quarter results and within the uncertainty of the broader macroeconomic environment, and emphasize the signals from Q1 that reinforce our confidence in the fundamentals of our business and financial model, supporting our full-year 2025 guidance and ongoing long-term growth. First, our Q1 performance underscores our commitment to making the investments that support sustainable mid-single digit or greater organic revenue growth, investing in hiring client-facing talent, strengthening and accelerating our ABS capabilities, and increasing our Aon client leaders to expand with our existing clients.

Organic revenue growth reached 5% for the quarter, with retention tracking one point better than Q1 2024, and market impact from pricing and exposures reflecting some pressure but slightly better than our expectations and still within our estimated range. Second, relentless execution on our accelerating Aon United restructuring program, notably in ABS, is creating 85 basis points of margin expansion in the quarter, creating capacity to fund the investments that I just referenced and strengthening the foundation for ongoing operating leverage from scale benefits. Third, we continued our balanced capital allocation discipline, remaining on track to meet our leverage objective while simultaneously continuing our middle market tuck-in acquisition to drive growth and returning $397 million in capital to shareholders through the dividend and share repurchases.

Additionally, our continued focus on portfolio management positions us to further strengthen our capital position, double down on growth in our core business, and sustain healthy capital returns to shareholders. The drivers of full-year 2025 growth, investing for sustainable organic revenue growth, continued margin expansion, and our strong capital position remain stable, and we are executing our plan. Despite the uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment and the noise in the first quarter, specifically from FX, given the dollar's 3%-7% stronger than it was in Q1 2024, where we have currency exposure, three months of additional impact on margin from NFP, higher interest in shares driven by the acquisition of NFP, all items that we communicated as part of our 2025 guidance. We have a high level of confidence in delivering on our financial objectives and achieving full-year results in line with our 2025 guidance.

Now, turning to the first quarter results and the financial summary on slide six, you see that total revenue increased 16% to $4.7 billion, and we delivered 5% organic revenue growth in the quarter. Adjusted operating income margin was 38.4%, down 130 basis points as we recognize the impact of NFP in the Q1 2025 results. Adjusted EPS was $5.67, reflecting the impact of higher interest in shares. Finally, we generated $84 million in free cash flow. Let's get into the details of these results, starting with organic revenue growth on slide 8. Organic revenue growth reached 5% in Q1 2025, continuing to be in line with our mid-single digit or greater guidance range. In commercial risk, organic revenue growth was 5%, with the biggest contribution coming from our international P&C business. Additionally, the growth reflected continued strength in our North American core P&C business.

While deal activity was slower than expected when entering the year, we had a modest tailwind from M&A services relative to Q1 2024. Reinsurance with 4% organic revenue growth was driven by growth in treaty placements and double-digit growth in both facultative placements and insurance-linked securities. This growth was partially offset by the impact of a multi-year extension with a significant client at higher limits and adjusted commission. Looking ahead to the second quarter, we expect softer market conditions with April 1 property rates in both the U.S. and Japan, down 5-20%. Importantly, we expect full-year organic revenue growth in line with our mid-single digit or greater objective as we see a strong second half driven by higher limits at July 1 renewals, continued growth in our international facultative placements, and strength in our strategy and technology group.

Health solutions also delivered 5% growth, driven by a double-digit increase in our core health and benefits business, which was particularly strong in our international markets. The growth was fueled by net new business and market conditions that continue to simulate rising healthcare costs. In talent, we saw high single-digit growth in our advisory business, offset by lower data analytics sales, which were impacted by our data delivery schedule. We still expect our talent business to deliver mid-single digit or greater full-year growth. Finally, wealth was our highest-growing solution line in the quarter, generating 8% organic revenue growth primarily driven by NFP asset inflows and market performance and continued regulatory work across the U.K. and EMEA. I will note that in the second quarter, we will be growing over an elevated Q2 2024.

Our Q1 organic revenue growth continued to be powered by new business, which contributed nine points from both existing and new clients. Retention was one point better than a year ago, with commercial risk steadily improving as we deploy our risk capital analyzers, supporting a net new business contribution of four points to organic revenue growth. The net market impact, which measures the impact of exposures and rate, contributed one point to organic revenue growth, squarely within our 0-2 point estimated range. Reinsurance was flat as rate declines were mitigated with increased sideways coverage, and rate pressure in commercial risk was offset with limit and coverage increases across our book. Health and wealth had positive net market impact as we continue to see increasing costs in health and positive market impact in wealth.

One final point on revenue, first quarter fiduciary investment income was down 15% versus last year to $67 million as the increase in average balances was more than offset by lower interest rates. As a reminder, we do not include fiduciary investment income in our organic revenue growth calculation. On slide nine, adjusted operating income was up 12% for the quarter to $1.8 billion. Adjusted operating margin was 38.4% in the first quarter, in line with expectations and down from 39.7% in Q1 2024, reflecting the impact of the NFP acquisition, which closed in late April 2024, as well as the interest rate impact on investment income from fiduciary balances. Adjusted operating margin continued to benefit from the scale in our business, particularly through Aon Business Services and from our restructuring initiative to accelerate our 3x3 plan.

Specifically, restructuring savings in the first quarter were $40 million, which contributed approximately 85 basis points to adjusted operating margin. Looking ahead, we continue to expect $150 million of savings for the full year 2025 and are well on track to achieve our stated goal of $350 million of run rate savings in 2026. Our organic revenue growth and the actions we are taking through Aon Business Services to standardize our operations and integrate our platforms are creating capacity to fund our growth investments and setting the foundation for ongoing margin expansion through operating efficiencies and scale in our business. We remain committed to driving full-year adjusted operating margin expansion of 80-90 basis points in 2025. Moving to interest, other income and taxes on slide 10.

Interest income of $5 million was $23 million lower than last year when we earned interest on funds utilized in the NFP acquisition. We expect interest income to be negligible in Q2 2025 compared to the $31 million in Q2 2024. Interest expense of $206 million was up $62 million versus last year, reflecting $7 billion in higher debt driven by the NFP acquisition. We expect $209 million of interest expense in Q2 2025. Other expense increased $23 million year over year, primarily due to higher non-cash pension expense. Finally, the Q1 tax rate was 20.9%, 160 basis points lower than Q1 2024, reflecting the geographic mix of income growth and the favorable impact of discrete items. Our tax guidance for the full year remains at 19.5%-20.5%.

Turning now to free cash flow and capital allocation on slide 11, we generated $84 million of free cash flow in Q1, reflecting strong operating income growth and DSO improvements, partially offset by higher incentive, interest, and restructuring payments. We continue to expect double-digit free cash flow growth in 2025 and a double-digit three-year CAGR on free cash flow from 2023 to 2026. In the quarter, our leverage ratio was 3.5 times, and we continue to be on track to achieve a 2.8-3 times leverage ratio in Q4 2025, consistent with the objective that we set when we announced the NFP acquisition. Additionally, we remained active in M&A, continuing our targeted tuck-in acquisitions across priority areas, including middle market acquisitions through NFP, which acquired $19 million in EBITDA in Q1.

The pipeline remains strong, especially with opportunities in commercial risk, and we continue to expect to acquire $45 million-$60 million of EBITDA through NFP middle market acquisitions in 2025. Finally, we returned $397 million in capital to shareholders through the dividend and $250 million in share repurchases in Q1. Additionally, as Greg mentioned, in April, we increased our quarterly dividend by 10% to $0.74 per share, marking 15 consecutive annual dividend increases, reflecting the strength of our business and financial model and our confidence in achieving double-digit free cash flow growth. I will conclude my prepared remarks on slide 12 with our 2025 guidance and some final thoughts. The first quarter 2025 performance signals a start to the year that is right in line with our expectations. We are executing our 3x3 plan and have momentum that is being reflected in our first quarter results.

Removing the noise and elevating what matters for our full-year 2025 guidance, let me highlight the following. We achieved 5% organic revenue growth in the first quarter, meeting our objective. We are reaffirming our mid-single digit or greater 2025 full-year guidance for organic revenue growth. We continue to get scale benefits through ABS. We are achieving our restructuring goals, and we continue to actively manage the portfolio. We are still expecting and reaffirming 80-90 basis points of margin expansion for the full year 2025. We also continue to expect strong earnings growth for the full year. I will note that we are excited that today marks the one-year anniversary of the NFP acquisition. As a reminder, the late April 2024 close will impact Q2 2025 margin and earnings just as we expected.

For modeling purposes, we are estimating 15%-18% adjusted EPS growth in Q2 2025. Finally, our earnings growth, including NFP, will contribute to double-digit free cash flow growth in 2025 and a double-digit three-year CAGR for 2023 to 2026. Our guidance demonstrates the strength and resiliency of our business and financial model. We are prioritizing investments that support sustainable organic revenue growth. Our execution in Aon Business Services is supporting top-line growth, creating investment capacity, and delivering margin expansion. We expect to deliver strong earnings per share growth and to generate double-digit free cash flow growth. We continue to have disciplined capital allocation, balancing between high-return growth investment and capital return to shareholders. Finally, as Greg mentioned, my 60,000-plus colleagues and I are excited to host an Investor Day on June 9th, our first in 20 years. I look forward to your participation.

With that, Rob, let me hand it back to you, and we'll jump into questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask a question at this time, you may press star one from your telephone keypad, and a confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you'd like to withdraw your question from the queue. For participants that are using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions, and that's star one. Thank you. Thank you. Our first question today is from the line of Andrew Kligerman with TD Securities. Please proceed with your questions.

Andrew Kligerman (Managing Director)

Hey, good morning. You just, Edmund just mentioned the one-year kind of anniversary of having acquired NFP.

Sounds like things are going really well there. Now that you've got this year under your belt, how are you feeling? Could you give us a little color on the M&A pipeline? I know in the slides it mentions that it's robust. I mean, any statistics? Could you do a big acquisition if you feel that there's the right one out there? I mean, how are you thinking about M&A for NFP as we move into Q2 2025?

Greg Case (CEO)

Andrew, thanks for the question. Listen, I'm really looking forward to this one. There's a step back. The overall capital allocation piece, and Edmund can comment on this as well, is really what drives what we do. It drives everything around capital allocation. We're always looking for opportunities to strengthen the firm and reinforce what we do from a return on investment capital standpoint.

The good news is, I'll tell you, it's been a great year with NFP. It's been terrific to have them as part of the overall Aon family. A lot of good things happening in the middle market with lots of opportunities there, as you're indicating. We're certainly looking at that, and we're certainly going to continue to execute on the programmatic work that we've been doing from an acquisition standpoint, just a superb engine in place at NFP. There's a broad set of opportunities we're going to look at. You'll note we're making substantial organic investment in the firm. We're making investment on the M&A front as well as other areas as well. Look for us to continue to do that.

Suffice to say, we see lots of opportunities, and we'll always continue to evaluate those in the context of everything that's going on around capital allocation, including the debt paydown. Edmund, what else would you add?

Edmund Reese (CFO)

Yeah. Yeah, Greg's exactly right. There's tons of opportunity on the M&A front, but your question is about 2025. In 2025, as part of our disciplined capital allocation, the prime objective for us, the number one objective, is to get back to our leverage ratio target. I think we're well on track to do that in Q4 2025. That's the first step. We're very excited at the fact of just increasing the dividend.

The remaining capacity is what we'll look to analyze the opportunities that Greg's talking about to ensure that they fit within our overall strategy, our 3x3 plan, and have the right financial return criteria before we deploy capital to M&A. Of course, we're going to continue to balance capital return to shareholders. In 2025, the key point is, I think we have the right free cash flow generation to get to the right place from a leverage ratio standpoint. We have the free cash flow to allow us to continue to get $45 million-$60 million in M&A in the middle market space through NFP and the rest. This year, we think our focus is on capital return to shareholders.

Got it. Thanks. With respect to commercial risk solutions, a really solid 5% plus organic revenue growth.

I think you mentioned that the market impact was flat in the release. Could you give a little color around the backdrop of how pricing influenced the 5% plus, how exposures influenced the 5% plus? It seemed one of your competitors reported a deceleration in that area in organic growth, and investors felt a little concerned. I’d like to get a little sense of what these different market impacts are more granularly and then why you feel so confident that you could continue to do. I know it’s for the whole organization, but more focused on CRS, why you think you can do 5% or mid-single or better.

Greg Case (CEO)

Excellent question. A lot to unpack there because you really talked about commercial risk overall for Aon and then within the context of that, what’s going on in commercial risk pricing.

Maybe we'll take a first start governing thought with Aon and maybe go to pricing, Andrew, if you're okay with that. Sure. And get Edmund to chime in here as well. First, you're absolutely right. As we reflect on the first quarter, we're very pleased with the progress. What's under the hood for us is really what's most prevalent. It's another quarter, as you described, of organic revenue at 5%. It really does reflect the new business and strong retention. That's really the drivers of it. Edmund mentioned some of the market impact was limited, but it held steady within our expectations. This was growth for us, by the way, across all major geographies, strength in core P&C, and especially in international, fantastic. More than anything, Andrew, it really is we're seeing traction on what we're doing with the 3x3 plan.

This is risk capital really delivered through Aon client leadership and powered by Aon Business Services. These are our risk analyzers. They're opening doors, broadening discussions. They're, frankly, increasing win rates for us in RFPs. Same on retention. Edmund talked about a point of increasing retention. This is driven by service enhancements that are substantial, like the certificate platform that we've talked about before. The impact of hiring is just beginning to really have effect in terms of where we are. We continue to invest and drive that. For us, we feel very good about the overall program and progress. What Q1 did for us in commercial risk and really did across the board is just highlight progress and reinforce our conviction around mid-single digit or greater for the year. That's the overall business.

Maybe Edmund, comment on that a bit, and then we'll turn back to Andrew's key point on pricing.

Edmund Reese (CFO)

Yeah, sure. I mean, Greg, I think you hit all the points on the commercial risk. Even when we go back to the key points on pricing, I think the answer is very much similar in that the growth here is driven primarily by new business. That was 10 points in the quarter when we think about commercial risk. The retention, I talked about that being better sequentially and year over year, better than last quarter and better than the year before. A lot of that is driven by the investments and the deployment of our analyzers, as Greg just said, helping in RFPs. That is driven by our enterprise client group going out and expanding with our relationships.

Despite the pressure in clients on certain lines, the outlook in the second half is that we continue to have strength in commercial risk, particularly as we think about the hires that we've been doing, priority areas like construction, which we think will pick up in the second half, and the actions we're taking to drive limit and coverage increases to offset any modest pricing impact. We are going to continue to focus on that, net new business and the retention component of it.

Greg Case (CEO)

Andrew, does that answer your question on the Aon front? I want to come to pricing specifically, because I do not understand.

Andrew Kligerman (Managing Director)

That was perfect.

Greg Case (CEO)

All right. Let's go to pricing for a minute. We just want to offer a couple of things here. First, because it is part of all the conversations, it seems, of late.

Look, typically, Andrew, everybody's on unit pricing. That's the sole topic. We'll continue to remind everyone. It's unit price and insured values. This is sort of the market impact. That's what Edmund was describing before we came into the quarter. Kind of zero to two expectations were at one. I do want to highlight, irrespective of what's going on currently, the long-term trends here, long-term trends, this is critical, are increasing in terms of levels of risk. This is cyber, supply chain, weather, social inflation. At a macro level, the need is increasing. That has implications on sort of overall demand and pricing. Having said that, we also want to be explicit. It's been described by my colleagues as kind of the current market really reflects the current trading environment. That's generally more buyer-friendly.

Generally, because there is no really macro market here, it's a bunch of micro markets. Property rates are softening a bit, particularly in large property in the US, and a little bit more in Asia-Pacific as well. That's really, by the way, not surprising. That's where the big increases were. A bit softer on the financial line side and cyber as well overall. The exception, by the way, Andrew, on the other side is things like US auto and excess casualty, which, again, lots of different reasons why that's going up and increasing. We would say middle market, similar conditions on the stresses. Absolutely. Maybe it's slightly more muted because the segment doesn't have the same peaks and valleys as some of the large market pieces, but certainly the same pressures.

We also, as we always do, are working with clients to understand the conditions and improve their programs, change limits, buy coverages they lost in the hard market, reduce all those things you can imagine, Andrew, we are working on. One of the things that was interesting is alternative risk transfer continues to be highly prevalent. The work we are doing with reinsurance in the commercial risk arena on alternative risk transfer is substantial. Net-net, as it relates to Aon, I just want to finish with Edmund's point. For us, it is about client wins and retention. That is exceptionally strong. The 3x3 plan has really supported us, which is why in this environment, we are reinforcing our conviction around mid-single digit or greater. That is a little more color on the pricing side.

Andrew Kligerman (Managing Director)

Great to hear and very helpful.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is from the line of Elyse Greenspan with Wells Fargo. Please just see if their question is here.

Elyse Greenspan (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, thanks. Good morning. My first question is on reinsurance. I know, Edmund, you mentioned a multi-year extension that I think had a negative impact in the quarter. I was hoping to get more details and quantification there. And then I think you pointed to some softer conditions in the second quarter. I guess is the expectation Q2 could be similar to Q1, and then things pick up in the back half? I was hoping to kind of flesh both of those things out relative to reinsurance.

Greg Case (CEO)

Maybe, Elyse, if you don't mind, there's a little macro point on kind of the overall reinsurance and what the first quarter told us.

Because one of the themes that sort of Edmund started with is really understanding kind of the underlying kind of performance factors that we saw in Q1. There is obviously a lot of noise for us as we closed NFP and did all the pieces around that. Reinsurance, no different than commercial risk, exceptionally positive in terms of what we saw and what is indicated for the rest of the year, which is why, again, we are at the same expectation, mid-single digit or greater. Net-net, think about what is going on in reinsurance right now for us. We are building on core momentum. This is what we do at a segment level with our clients, but really differentiating on analytics. What we have invested in in Aon Business Services and with Risk Capital has been really, for us, meaningful, real tour de force.

We're winning more than ever before in this context on the reinsurance and the commercial risk side. This risk capital construct is also meaningful. The level of cap bonds and parametric work we're doing is exceptional and driven by risk capital. The Strategic and Technology Group, Edmund mentioned, also reinforcing and driving progression. The 4%, which was seven in the first quarter of last year, it's treaty placements, as Edmund described. It's double-digit growth in faculty. It's another double-digit growth on insurance-linked securities. In net-net, strong progression overall. I'll just highlight, Edmund mentioned the piece around the multi-year extension. This was a phenomenal outcome for this client. This was a massive, let me just say, massive program. What we did is what we always do. We talk about value creation and what we're trying to do on their behalf.

We get paid on value. By the way, it affects timing sometimes. In this case, in Q1, it affected timing. Overall, the impact for this client was huge. The impact for Aon is huge. We're excited about this progression, but it showed up in Q1. You shouldn't confuse the Q1 impact with the overall year opportunity and sort of what it's going to look like over time. That gets us back to mid-single digit or greater. That's a bit of a background. Edmund, anything else you'd add and make sure you covered?

Edmund Reese (CFO)

I just want to emphasize the last point that you made. We obviously don't have the continued impact, client impact, which is an extremely positive thing for us, exactly what we want to do, extend and expand with our clients.

Elyse, I want to be clear in your question that you shouldn't expect that impact, obviously, to carry over into Q2. While we do have line of sight into, just as you've heard others talk about, the US and Japan April 1 renewals, I think the strong performance that we had Q1, ex that extension, you should see flow over into Q2. When we go out in the second half of the year, this is a business where we do have line of sight. We can see sort of where we're tracking. When I look at the second half of the year, the July 1 renewals, we have good line of sight too. That looks strong, increased limit.

We also see the continued growth in our international facultative placements, one of the things that was very strong in Q1 as well, and the STT group. I think Q2 through Q4 should be in line with our mid-single digits guidance and the overall year in line with that as well.

Elyse Greenspan (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks. My follow-up question is on free cash flow. I just wanted to, A, confirm, right, that it's double-digit growth, right? I think it's on the reported $2.8 billion from 2024. I guess the NFP contribution will help Aon get to the double digits. I just want to make sure that I'm thinking about the free cash flow growth off of the right base and what the message is.

Is there any seasonality to the back three quarters that we need to think about in terms of hitting that double-digit target for the full year?

Edmund Reese (CFO)

The short answer is yes. You hit it exactly right that we are talking about the baseline of 2024 double-digit growth. I think you'll see growth, that double-digit growth, a contribution from NFP, but also our core operating performance in the continued improvement that we have on DSO. There are two things in Q1. You asked the question about seasonality. There are two things I'll point out to you in Q1 that's going on. We still have the integration costs from NFP. We have restructuring payments. I called that out related to our AAU program. We have higher incentives. We've been hiring more. We had strong performance in Q2 2024.

It is typically our lowest quarter of free cash flow in Q1. That is what I would call out from seasonality. As we go into the back half of the year, you have two things correct. You have the right denominator, the right starting baseline. You have the NFP contribution, but I would also add the contribution from the core performance of the business, both on the working capital side and the operating income side.

Elyse Greenspan (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next questions are from the line of David Motemaden with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your questions.

David Motemaden (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning. I think it was Edmund, you had spoken about some of the hires. I know you guys added, I think it was 4% new hires in certain revenue-producing roles last year. It sounded like we have not really gotten the contribution from those new hires in the first quarter here.

It does not sound like it is really going to come next quarter, but you are really pointing to the second half. I am wondering if you could just elaborate on some of the headcount growth and the productivity enhancement as we think about the cadence of the organic growth within commercial risk.

Edmund Reese (CFO)

Yeah. Look, the first point I would make is that we are a growth company, and we are committed to making the investments in the headcount. We did talk about that growth number last year in 2024, and frankly, we want to do better than that as we come into 2025. We are off to a great start in the right areas, in areas like health, construction, those places coming into 2025. I think the short answer to your question is it is still too early to see the exact impact. Let me maybe be a little bit more specific with that.

When we look at the Q1 vintages from 2024, we're now in months 12-15 for those vintages. Still early. I talked about starting to see the impact on contribution to growth between months 18-24 and beyond as we look at it. The early signs suggest that the average revenue for these early vintages are coming in at a profitable high return. I expect that there'll soon be a contribution to the organic revenue growth. We did point out in Q4, we saw growth in some of those priority areas that was quite strong in construction, in energy. All the signs are suggesting that we continue to lean into the investment for priority hires in these areas as we move forward. We'll share information as we see the metrics evolve.

Greg Case (CEO)

Two things I just added that, David, if I could, are two messages embedded in Edmund's comments. One is this is a continuing process around priority areas. Those will evolve over time, but we are going to continue to drive in a continuous process. The second is you do not hear us backing up on margin as it relates to this. This is literally, we are making these investments in the context of everything else we are doing. We are covering them with ABS capability and efficiency that comes with the positive pieces around revenue with ABS as well. For us, this is just part of an investment we are now prepared to make on an ongoing basis that strengthens our firm and reinforces accretion on the top line, but also in performance and OI.

Finally, the piece I just highlighted is, listen, we're not bringing these folks in as account. They're coming in to be better. When we actually identify capability and in priority areas, it's kind of how do we use our analyzers and our retention and all the pieces that come with this is essentially not bigger, not bigger, better. By the way, that's one of the reasons people are excited to be part of the firm when they see the billion-dollar spend on Aon Business Services and the analyzers and the service pieces. It's why we've been able to attract talent in some of these areas. It's important you understand the investment in the context of our overall strategy.

David Motemaden (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Thanks. Maybe just another question, more of a numbers question, just on the margin.

I guess I'm just wondering, a bunch of noise with the NFP deal and sort of resetting the base. Could we get sort of the combined margin base for, I guess, as we should think about it for the first quarter, just given the time of 2024, and how much sort of core margin improvement or lack thereof there would have been this quarter sort of on a combined basis? I know, Edmund, you had called out the 85 basis points from cost saves, but was hoping to just get a little bit more color there as we think about the ramp up over the next several quarters.

Edmund Reese (CFO)

I want to give you the short answer just so that we can clarify it's not the lack thereof, as you just mentioned there.

Adjusting for the three months of NFP would have had us at over 100 basis points of margin expansion in Q1. Think about that relative to 90 basis points in 2024. Think about that relative to the decade before 2024 being at 126 basis points. Continued margin expansion is what you're seeing in our business when you take a look at the impact of NFP there. The areas to focus on are exactly what we gave in the 2025 guidance. I would say those areas, those four areas that I talked about are right in line with what we are expecting or slightly better. We talked about the NFP impact, three additional months in Q1, four additional months for the year, offset by the OpEx synergies, diluting margins by 20 basis points.

There's no reason to think that we are not going to be at those levels or better. The second impact we talked about was the interest rate impact on fiduciary investment income. If you look at the rate, the average rate on fiduciary investment income, that was 110 basis points lower in the quarter. That margin impact was right in line with the 20 basis points that we talked about there. I did point out in my prepared remarks the continued performance on the restructuring from AAU, so 85 basis points there. That is exactly what we said in the guidance. I think just the operating leverage. Greg made an extremely important point, his second point in the last answer about ABS creating capacity to fund investments. That is the operating leverage in our business. That is what I think is 35-45 basis points.

That is why we're confident in reaffirming and maintaining the 80-90 basis points. I think the way you think about it is that we are, in fact, expanding both in the core business and in NFP given the margin synergies.

David Motemaden (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thank you for that, Coller.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next questions are from the line of Paul Newsom with Piper Sandler. Please proceed with your questions.

Jon Newsome (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Good morning. Just wanted to revisit a couple of the major topics here. The first one, and I apologize if I missed it, was the NFP, was it accretive to organic growth in the quarter? I guess as sort of the better question, did it have a bigger impact in the retirement benefits businesses versus commercial? Because if I recall, its business was weighted more towards the health business than it was the P&C business.

Greg Case (CEO)

Paul, appreciate it.

Thanks for the question. Listen, as we step back, just to reiterate, it's been an amazing year. NFP has brought such great capability and content. It's been great to watch NFP connect with Aon, Aon to connect with NFP. We have seen meaningful opportunities in new client situations, in existing client situations, as NFP has utilized Aon Client Treaty and some of the capabilities we've got. Also, Aon has benefited from the incredible client connections that NFP has as well. This is a long-winded way of saying, listen, this is about Aon. In the end, yes, there was 5% organic contributions from NFP, fantastic. Contributions from Aon, fantastic. More important, Q1 for us was an indicator of what's to come. That's true on the 3x3 and the analyzers and the core business, and it is also true on the NFP front.

It was really across the board, good contribution on the NFP front, good contribution on the overall Aon front. Really, across the board in terms of businesses, commercial risk, wealth, and health, all across the pieces. We're not going to be breaking out NFP as a construct because there's just too much connectivity that's happening. The connectivity is not worth parsing. We essentially want to reinforce connectivity as opposed to break out separate pieces. This is the beauty of independent and connected. Independent in the day-to-day and the field and what's happening in the leadership and the M&A engine and all the pieces around that, really connected from the standpoint of content and capability in ways that actually helps our producers do more with clients every day.

Just suffice it to say, all contributed, all on track, and we were very excited about the high expectations we had as we came into the year.

Jon Newsome (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Great.Revisiting pricing a little bit, one of the questions of the quarter for the industry has been what appears to be differentiating behavior between large account commercial and small and mid. I am just curious if you had any thoughts upon that, if that was indeed what you are seeing as well within your book, and if you think that is a potential continuing trend in the future.

Greg Case (CEO)

Yeah. Paul, the point I was trying to make before, Andrew's question was really around, look, generally, the trading conditions are softer in specific areas, property, financial line, cyber, with some exceptions, as I said, on the auto side and the casualty side, of course, on the other piece.

We saw similar trends, similar trends in mid-market, slightly more muted, although there are moments, but slightly more muted just given that there were not as much peaks and valleys overall. I would bring you back, though, to the macro points around the long-term trends. All the things that are happening, cyber, supply chain, climate, weather, social inflation, these affect the middle market too. I mean, our middle market clients, as we're finding with NFP, very sophisticated set of needs. And when you can bring real solutions to them, they matter, and they matter even more in the current environment. I think directionally, you probably have it, we would agree. The nuance matters because it shows up one client at a time. It is why we have success, because we can bring solutions in a very specific, tailored way on a client-by-client basis.

Generally, I'd say you're directionally right.

Jon Newsome (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Great. Thank you for the thoughtful answers, and I always appreciate the help.

Operator (participant)

Our next questions are coming from the line of Meyer Shields, KBW. Please proceed with your questions.

Meyer Shields (Managing Director)

Great. Thanks so much. I appreciate the outlook in terms of tougher comp for wealth solutions in the second quarter and, I guess, the back half of the year. I was hoping you could add a little color in terms of the specific businesses and underlying factors that were so strong in the first quarter of this year. What is it that actually drove the investment growth?

Greg Case (CEO)

Listen, if you come back, Meyer, we've loved our survey. It's been fantastic what the teams have been able to do over really a multi-year period.

Again, I would come back on the wealth side, start with macro trends, then talk about the Aon team and what the drivers of success are. Remember, by the way, this business overall is kind of two-thirds retirement, one-third investments. The investments business has a core investments piece, but it also has an advisory piece embedded in it as well. That is kind of the macro business. Think about the macro trends. It is retirement readiness. 20% of the world is ready for retirement. That is a massive challenge for the world as this evolves. If we can address retirement readiness, huge. Second, wealth transfer, if you think about sort of what is going on, also very, very substantial. The piece you cannot lose is the regulatory challenges that seem to come up year after year after year.

From our standpoint, we've got an amazing team across each one of those pieces, now even stronger on the NFP front. The team's exceptional. The drivers of success for us have been much like it was on the commercial risk side: new business and retention. New business and retention. It really is client leadership and new capabilities, new clients, and then retaining them longer. The second big piece is pension risk transfer. You've seen us do some things in that arena that really no one else has been able to do in the U.S. and the European and the U.K. theater in particular. Finally, on the core retirement side, everyone comes back and says, "This is the challenge on defined benefit to defined contribution." It is in the fullness of time.

My gosh, in its current world, with the regulatory challenges, it really creates opportunity for us to help clients think about that overall strategy. Those are the very specific things that are really driving success on the wealth side. Edmund quite rightfully talked about some of the pressures in Q2, so to be mindful of those. The team's done a phenomenal job progressing here, and we're looking forward to continued success.

Meyer Shields (Managing Director)

Okay. Thank you. That's very helpful. If I can switch gears, you talked about the individual, I guess, multi-year extension within reinsurance. Greg, you described that as a really good deal for the client, which is what you should be doing. Does that mean that we should expect other such deals, not necessarily with this client, but others?

Greg Case (CEO)

Listen, we've come back, Meyer, philosophically this is, by the way, I just answered specifically.

This is a very unique situation. Let me just stress, very unique and very substantial in terms of both the size and the value creation that we brought forward. For us, we're always looking for innovative ways to think about how to bring value to clients. If you think about Aon's history, we will never be low price. We're not going to be low price. We're going to be high value. We cost a dollar, and we can prove to a client we give them back $2, and we can quantify that. They actually understand it. They can touch it. They can feel it. They know it either affects volatility, which is value creation, or actual cost, etc. Meyer, that's how we go.

By the way, if a competitor comes in and says they're $0.50 but can only return $0.52, if a client believes that and understands it, they go with us. If they don't believe it, they don't. Our analytics make us stronger and stronger in that regard. In this case, very unique, let me just add, very unique and very substantial. We went from kind of the more annual periodic piece to a very long-term engagement that enables us to do some things on their behalf that are exceptional. It was really in that context we did what we would call great value creation, and we got recognized for that value. I think this was, for us, great outcomes on both sides.

We'd love to do more of these in a way that really can add this kind of value, but this is a very, as I said last time, very unique situation. The downside is it had some pressure in timing, and you saw that in the first quarter, but so be it. We want to do a try to unravel the client.

Edmund Reese (CFO)

Greg, it had pressure in reinsurance in the quarter. We have a diversified business across multiple solution lines: commercial, reinsurance, health, and wealth. The reason that we're still able to deliver the mid-single digit is because of that, because we're operating across solution lines, because we're operating in multiple countries, because we have the operating leverage in our business.

When the opportunity comes to grow with the client in a significant way and still be able to deliver our results, of course, we're going to jump on that.

Meyer Shields (Managing Director)

Okay. Fantastic. That was very helpful. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next questions are from the line of Jimmy Voeller with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your questions.

Good morning. Question for Greg. I know you affirmed your guidance, but obviously, there's been a lot of volatility in the macro and geopolitical environment. Just wondering where, if any, there are changes in your expectations for your various businesses versus early in 2025. I know there's a lot of optimism about capital markets activity picking up. That hasn't happened. Now inflation's higher. If you could touch on your major businesses and where maybe you're more optimistic, where you're seeing some headwinds.

Greg Case (CEO)

Yeah. I appreciate that, Jimmy.

I'll start, and Edmund can add some color as well. Listen, the trauma is real. You're seeing it every day. I would remind, though, you step back. Remember, Jimmy, we've been talking for quite some time about increased volatility. We talked about, we call it the four megatrends: trade, technology, weather, and workforce. Remember, all those, that was before the tariffs. This has been substantial. They're all there. They all continue to drive volatility and, in many respects, create risk for clients, which means demand, if we can help them understand that volatility and do something about it. Clearly, today, trade's at the forefront, no doubt about that. Clients are sitting there essentially saying, "Look, we not only have to understand what's going on, we got to do something about it." If COVID taught us anything, inaction's not a productive option. You've got to do something.

You've got to have a plan. We're engaging, and it really is across every one of our businesses, really, on the risk capital side, commercial and reinsurance, on the human capital side, with our talent business, health, even retirement. We're active with clients, and we're helping them try to understand the complexity and then what they can do about it. I described the supply chain diagnostic, our analyzers, Jimmy, in terms of how to help them understand what's going on. I mean, we just did a massive, the biggest parametric, I think the biggest parametric on a severe convective storm that's ever been done for a big steel company. It really was in the face of this new set of risks that are on the horizon and how they can deal with that. For us, we're tailoring solutions against this.

Now, there are no doubt there are puts and takes here, and there will be pressures on areas of discretionary spend. We should recognize that that will come and that will be real. It is also offset in many respects by what I'm just describing, our ability to react to client demand. For us, we step back right now. Look, the world's changed a lot, even in the last 30 days in terms of pressure. We look at where the world is right now, and we will say, "Listen, we have conviction about mid-single digit, our greater growth. We are not changing guidance based on what we've seen in the first quarter." Some of the underlying factors that we really see on the positive side, we talked about on the call around what's happening with our 3x3 plan, all those are good.

In that context, that's where we are. We said, "Jimmy, that's across the board. That's reinsurance. That's commercial risk. That's what we're doing in health, and that's what we're doing in wealth." For us, we see opportunities everywhere. We see the challenges. They're real. Against that set, we also see mid-single digit or greater. That's what we're focused on, and that's the mission to achieve, and that's our guidance as of today. Jimmy just followed up. Sure. Go on. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Edmund Reese (CFO)

I mean, I was going to give you some—I agree with Greg's point about mid-single digit or greater. When we think about confidence in the second half and go through our solution lines, specifically, it will continue to come through the new business and the retention.

Construction, core P&C, the NFP pipeline and synergies, those things are improving as we look in the second half of the year, and we'll have meaningful contribution. In reinsurance, I mentioned earlier the July 1 renewals with more limit. Again, we have line of sight there, the international faculty. In the health solution line, we have the core benefits. Remember, we just said that was double-digit in three out of our four regions and 9% in the other. We continue to expect benefit and growth there, as well as now getting the benefit of the talent business as we recognize revenue in data and analytics. On the wealth side, I think we have great line of sight for Q2 on the asset component that Greg was talking about.

That regulatory component, pension risk transfer, and the strong retention, those are the things that are driving growth in the second half of the year. Of course, we'll see some benefit from the investment hires. When I think about that and the absence of the headwinds that we had in Q1, it's really important to think about 13 points of EPS headwind from the increase in interest and the increase in shares from the NFP acquisition. Those things won't be there as we go around in the year. That together is what gives us confidence in the second half of the year and why we're reaffirming the guidance here.

Got it. Just on the performance of the NFP business, if you could just comment on how it's tracked versus what you would have expected.

Because if we look at the contribution to revenues from acquisitions and dispositions, both in RIS and in health, it was lower this quarter than it's been the last few quarters. NFP is obviously a big number there. Any comments on the performance of the acquired business?

Greg Case (CEO)

Jimmy, I'll just start macro levels. As we said before, listen, we had high expectations, and they've been exceeded in terms of what we're trying to do. Underlying connectivity, the old thesis around independent and connected, exactly as we'd hoped. The retention on the producer side, phenomenal. Again, ultimately, this is all about how our client-facing individuals see more opportunity as we brought the firms together. That is what we continue to work on. We have work to do, no doubt about it. We have made great progress.

At an underlying level, as Edmund has highlighted throughout the call, we just reiterated, as all this comes together, we're going to deliver. It's going to be together more creative from a revenue standpoint, accretive from an operating standpoint, and certainly accretive from a free cash flow standpoint. For us, all those things have come together, and we feel fantastic about kind of the work in the first year and this first anniversary and looking forward to continuing with the strategy in the middle market.

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our final question today is from the line of Cave Montazari with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your questions.

Cave Montazeri (Research Analyst)

Thank you. First question is on the investor day, the first one in 20 years.

I'm just wondering, is there something specific that you think the street is underappreciating, maybe in terms of the power of the Aon United platform, your ABS capabilities, or the three-by-three plan? Or is it a new approach to communication, and maybe we should expect more regular investor days going forward?

Greg Case (CEO)

I don't know, Cave, on more investor days. One every 20 years might be the right answer. We'll see. Listen, we're really excited about this. I really hope those listening who have an interest can come. This for us is we think there's something here around next-generation client experience. We spent 15 years working on a platform on a connected global firm. We made no apologies. When we connect our global firm, we call it Aon United, but we're not kidding.

We're talking about single brand, single OpCo, single P and L, done some things that have really been difficult strides to get us coordinated. When we coordinate well on behalf of clients, we win more. We do more with them. We keep them longer. What has happened, though, in the 3x3 plan is we saw an opportunity to massively accelerate that. The acceleration gets borne out in something we call a next-generation client experience. Full stop. Risk Capital and Human Capital are an organization to sort of think about innovation at a client level, and we've seen many examples of that. That was not enough. We needed a way to deliver it at a client level. That is Aon client leadership. That was not enough. We needed Aon Business Services.

We needed the power of a way to look across data, embed the work we've done on AI and now generative AI, which we've done. We think we've come to a place, Cave, in which this next-generation client experience is real and powerful. We didn't want to do it at the beginning of the three-by-three, so we had a year go by. We are essentially going to update you on that next-generation client experience and where we are, the specific tangible places where we think it's changing the way clients actually do what they do and help make some better. For us, I'll probably tell it in my voice, we're pretty excited about this step change. It builds on the Aon United thesis around a connected global firm, but a massive acceleration. It's why we bet the billion dollars.

It's why we put a billion dollars at work to reinforce Aon Business Services, to innovate around Risk Capital and Human Capital and deliver it through Aon client leadership. You're going to see that mechanics. We're going to provide as much detail as we can. Probably have a few clients there talking about how it's different and how it's potentially useful for them as they think about running their and driving their businesses. We hope you enjoy it. We'll see what happens. Maybe you can give us your thought on sort of how frequently we might do that. In the meantime, we're excited about June 9th and hope you can join us.

Cave Montazeri (Research Analyst)

Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. My follow-up question should be an easy one.

Edmund, the second quarter EPS guidance that you gave us, 15%-18% EPS growth, is the baseline the $2.93 reported, or is there any adjustments we need to make to the starting point?

Edmund Reese (CFO)

That is the baseline. That's exactly right. Look, we're an annual company. We're going to continue to focus on full-year guidance, and we think the long-term drivers of growth are all stable. I gave that Q2 guidance because we do have the unique situation I recognize and appreciate from a modeling standpoint, given the timing of the NFP close. You do have the right baseline, and hopefully, the Q2 is helpful.

Cave Montazeri (Research Analyst)

Appreciate this. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. I'll now turn the call back over to Greg Case for closing remarks.

Greg Case (CEO)

Just wanted to say we appreciate everyone joining us and look forward to June 9 and our next discussion. Thanks so much.

Operator (participant)

This will conclude today's conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines at this time.