NU Online News Service, May 1, 1:35 p.m.EDT

Crediting high-retention rates and strong new-business growth,Marsh & McLennan Companies says first-quarter net income grewby 7 percent from the same period last year.

The New York-based services company, parent of insurance-brokerMarsh and reinsurance-broker Guy Carpenter, reports net income rose$22 million to $347 million. Revenues rose 6 percent, or $167million, to $3.05 billion.

In a conference call with financial analysts today, BrianDuperreault, president and chief executive officer, says allsegments of the company saw increases and the results are in linewith the company's “long-term plans to producedouble-digit-earnings growth.”

Revenues at brokerage Marsh rose 8 percent, or $97 million, to$1.4 billion with organic growth of 7 percent. Guy Carpenterrevenues were up 5 percent, or $17 million, to $357 million.Organic growth also rose 7 percent.

In its consulting business, revenues rose 4 percent, or $52million, to $1.3 billion with organic growth or 4 percent.

Daniel S. Glaser, group president and chief operating officer,says that the organic-growth numbers at Marsh were the strongestthe firm has seen in a decade.

The strong results were attributed to high retention rates, newbusiness, pricing trends and mild improvement in the economicpicture among clients, says Glaser.

On the subject of pricing, he says, that property is beingimpacted more than casualty rates. In the United States, property,workers' compensation and excess casualty are all up moderately.General liability and directors and officers insurance are stilldown. In other places in the world, rates are mixed.

“From a pricing standpoint, it's not a headwind, but I wouldn'tcall it a tailwind either,” says Glaser. “You have to look at whatgeography you're talking about and what line of business you'retalking about. It's very segmented, and since we participate acrossall of those segments, its muted from our perspective.”