Aon plans to shut six offices in the United Kingdom and consolidate some operations as part of a plan to reduce its workforce by 750 people there.
The Friday announcement by Aon U.K., said the firm plans to close offices in Canterbury, Cardiff, Liverpool, Norwich, Plymouth and Shrewsbury over the next year, part of the company's restructuring effort announced in November.
Aon said the closures would result in few job losses, as it plans to redeploy its workforce in a number of different ways, including having some work from home. Whatever job losses occur will be included in the 750 overall reductions the company plans to make, Aon said.
The company plans to relocate part of its private clients operation to Farnborough in 2006, where it says there will be room for expansion and trim office costs elsewhere.
"This isn't about withdrawing from any markets," said Philip Gore-Randall, a main board director of Aon Limited in a statement. "In fact it's quite the opposite – we want to have new ways of working in place so that we can expand our activities into new locations and not be restricted by needing to have a physical presence."
The moves are part of a three-year restructuring plan announced in November that would eliminate 1,400 jobs company wide and save the firm $150 million a year by 2008.
Aon has also said it is looking into plans to sell off its property-casualty insurance business.
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.