Aon to sell more businesses to secure Willis deal

Aon PLC announced Thursday that it has agreed to sell its U.S. retirement business to private equity firm Aquiline Capital Partners LLC and its retiree health exchange to former Aon unit Alight Solutions for a total of $1.4 billion in a further effort to allay antitrust concerns over its proposed purchase of Willis Towers Watson PLC.

Aon, which previously agreed to sell much of Willis’ reinsurance brokerage business and various other businesses to rival Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. and its German pension and investment business to Lane Clark & Peacock LLP, has agreed to offload businesses reporting about $2.3 billion in 2020 revenue to seal the Willis deal.

The announcements come after regulators in Europe and the United States pressured Aon to sell various businesses to secure antitrust approval of its purchase of Willis, which was announced in March 2020.

The retirement business being sold to Aquiline has about 1,000 staff and includes retirement consulting, U.S. pension administration and the U.S. portion of Aon’s international retirement consulting business, Aon said in a statement.

Aon’s retirement exchange provides individual health insurance coverage to retirees. Alight was formed through the sale of Aon’s benefits outsourcing business to private equity firm Blackstone Group LP in 2017.

All the proposed divestitures are contingent on Aon receiving regulatory approval to buy Willis.