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Text: I'm joined by Christa Davies, our CFO; and Eric Andersen, our president.
Our strong performance in 2021 is the direct result of deliberate steps we've taken that are enabling us to win more, do more and retain more with clients.
We're driving top and bottom-line results and are exceptionally well positioned to continue to deliver ongoing performance in 2022 and over the long term.
Most important, we want to express deep gratitude to our Aon colleagues around the world for their performance and results this year and for everything they've done for clients and for each other.
Our colleagues delivered a fantastic Q4 and a very strong finish to an outstanding year.
We achieved organic revenue growth of 10% in the fourth quarter, with double-digit growth in commercial risk and reinsurance, driven by net new business generation and client retention.
In commercial risk, we saw strength across the world, driven by net new business and retention in the core.
We also saw strength in more discretionary areas of the portfolio as economic growth and client activity continued to increase, including double-digit growth in project-related work and in transaction solutions as our teams responded to M&A deal flow and increased client demand.
Within health and wealth solutions, we saw double-digit growth in priority areas that we've been disproportionately investing in in the last several years, including voluntary benefits in health solutions and in delegated investment management in wealth solutions, which remains an essential part of our portfolio.
Our full year organic revenue growth of 9% reflects the strength and momentum of our Aon United strategy, which is designed to drive top and bottom-line results.
To that point, operating income increased 17% year over year.
Full year operating margins expanded 160 basis points to 30.1%, with margins of 32.8% in the fourth quarter, reflecting ongoing efficiency improvements, net of investment and long-term growth.
Earnings per share increased 22% for the full year, free cash flow exceeded $2 billion and we completed $3.5 billion of share buyback in 2021, a strong indication of our confidence in the long-term value of the firm.
Looking forward to 2022 and beyond, we continue to expect mid-single digit or greater organic revenue growth, margin improvement and double-digit free cash flow growth.
Looking back on the year, we would offer three observations that drove performance in '21 and reinforce our continued strong momentum in 2022.
First, as complexity and uncertainty has increased around the world, clients are demanding a partner capable of providing them greater clarity and confidence to make better decisions that will protect and grow their businesses.
In 2021, organizations and individuals continue to face the ongoing challenges of COVID and resulting effects in supply chain, growing concerns over climate change, commercial property, retirement readiness, regulatory changes, cyber and workforce resilience.
Against that backdrop, our decade-plus focus on Aon United and the content capability it allows us to deliver has never been more relevant.
Second, our colleagues feel that relevance and they take great pride in our ability to deliver existing and new sources of value to clients.
They recognize that these external challenges facing our clients create opportunity for them to bring better solutions and grow professionally.
We know this is what engages our colleagues and why they're feeling more relevant, more connected and more valued.
And we're seeing the impact of this focus.
In our recent all-colleague survey, engagement levels remain at all-time highs, in line with top-quartile employers.
Ultimately, we know that by creating an exceptional colleague experience or ensuring a better client experience, both of which translate into better performance for the firm.
And third, we continue to accelerate our innovation strategy by using our Aon United operating model to replicate successful solutions and applying those capabilities to new client bases, paving the way for innovation at scale.
We're incorporating our data, analytics and insight to direct existing capabilities to previously unmet client needs.
This allows us to serve existing clients in new and customized ways, bring existing solutions to new clients and expand our addressable market.
Let me highlight a few examples that demonstrate how we scale innovation to help our clients, both in new ways and from new sources.
Historically, you heard us talk about Aon Client Treaty, pre-underwritten insurance capacity we established at Lloyd's that we used to offer clients more easily and efficiently access capital for their placements.
When we designed this program over five years ago, we analyzed every historic placement, quantified the risk parameters around business replacement on Lloyd's and then prearranged capital to back those risks.
Aon Client Treaty provides more efficient access to capital for clients and insurers and we see ongoing opportunity to apply this concept to different geographies and risk classes using the same proprietary data and analytics backbone supported by Aon Business Services.
One new offering derived directly from this capability is a solution the team designed called Marilla, which enables reinsurers and investors to invest across our global reinsurance client portfolio.
This provides a broad entry point into global reinsurance risk that benefits our clients by enabling capital to access markets more efficiently.
This first of its kind solution could not have been designed without a proprietary analytic capability and we see important opportunities to build on this platform for future growth across Aon.
Another example to highlight is within voluntary benefits, where we're developing innovative solutions at scale and driving double-digit growth.
The offering combines user insight around enrollment from our active healthcare exchanges and capabilities from acquisitions like Univers and Farmington.
Our analytics platform and dashboards assess and illustrate planned features, product usage, claims experience and overall plant performance, providing insight into employee demand and satisfaction.
This work has been formed by 20 years of enrollment data from over 4 million participants, which enables us to rapidly develop bespoke solutions for our clients that strengthen their total rewards offering and reinforce their human capital strategy at a time when this has never been more essential.
These examples demonstrate how we help our clients access capital end markets in ways that never existed before.
Within that backdrop of increasing and changing risk, we're not only bringing our clients better solutions, we're also working more closely with them to understand their biggest challenges which in turn guides further innovation.
Our focus on building innovative capabilities that scale across Aon to better meet our clients' needs is also highlighted by our recent appointment of Jillian Slyfield as our chief innovation officer.
Jillian's digital experience and deep connections with Aon and across the industry position her exceptionally well to ensure that we're rapidly distributing new solutions to clients.
To summarize, 2021 was a year of incredible performance and a year that positions us for growth, innovation and momentum for 2022.
As we look forward, this momentum is further reinforced by global economic and societal trends and the resulting challenges and opportunities for our clients, which means that our Aon United strategy becomes even more relevant as we help clients make better decisions to protect and grow their businesses.
The capability and track record that we've built gives us confidence in our ability to drive further value for our clients, colleagues, society and shareholders.
As Greg highlighted, we delivered another strong quarter of performance across our key metrics to finish the year.
In the quarter, we delivered 10% organic revenue growth, the third consecutive quarter of double-digit organic growth, which translated into double-digit adjusted operating income and adjusted earnings-per-share growth, continuing our momentum as we head into 2022.
As I reflect on full year results, first, organic revenue growth was 9%, including double-digit growth in commercial risk solutions and health solutions.
I would note that total revenue growth of 10% includes a modest favorable impact from change in FX, partially offset by the impact of certain divestitures completed within the year.
Most notably, the retiree healthcare exchange business, as we continue to shift our portfolio toward our highest growth and return opportunities.
As we look to 2022, we're continuing to monitor various macroeconomic factors, including the underlying drivers of GDP, asset values, corporate revenues and employment, inflation, government stimulus and the impacts of COVID variants, all of which impact our clients and our business.
We continue to expect mid-single-digit or greater organic revenue growth for 2022 and over the long term.
Moving to operating performance.
We delivered substantial operational improvement, with adjusted operating income growth of 17% and adjusted operating margin expansion of 160 basis points to a record 30.1% margin.
The investments we have made in Aon Business Services give us further confidence in our ability to expand margins, building on our track record of approximately 100 basis points average annual margin expansion over the last decade.
We previously described the repatterning expenses that incurred within 2021, which have no impact on year-over-year margins.
While certain expenses may move from quarter to quarter, we do not expect further repatterning.
We expect the 2021 expense patterning to be the right quarterly patterning going forward before an expense growth.
During the year, as we previously communicated, we saw revenue growth outpace expense growth and investments.
While we do expect expenses to increase in 2022 due to certain factors such as increased investments in colleagues and a modest reduction of T&E, we think about growing margins over the course of the full year.
We expect to deliver margin expansion in 2022 as we continue our track record of cost discipline and managing investments and long-term growth on an ROIC basis.
We translated strong adjusted operating income growth into double-digit adjusted earnings per share growth of 22% for the full year, building on our track record of double-digit adjusted earnings per share growth over the last decade.
As noted in our earnings materials, FX translation was an unfavorable impact of approximately $0.03 in the fourth quarter and was a favorable impact of roughly $0.23 per share for the full year.
If currency will remain stable at today's rates, we would expect an unfavorable impact of approximately $0.16 per share or approximately $48 million decrease in operating income in the first quarter of 2022.
In addition, we expect noncash pension expense of approximately $11 million for full year 2022 based on current assumptions.
This compares to the $21 million of noncash pension income recognized in 2021.
Turning to free cash flow and capital allocation.
We continue to expect to drive free cash flow growth over the long term based on operating income growth, working capital improvements and structural uses of cash enabled by Aon Business Services.
In 2021, free cash flow decreased 23% to $2 billion reflecting strong revenue growth, margin expansion and improvements in working capital, which were offset by $1 billion termination fee payment and other related costs.
I'd observe that excluding the $1 billion termination fee payment, free cash flow grew $400 million or approximately 15% from $2.6 billion in 2020.
Our outlook for free cash flow growth in 2022 and beyond remains strong.
Given this outlook, we expect share repurchase to continue to remain our highest return on capital opportunity for capital allocation as we believe we are significantly undervalued in the market today, highlighted by the approximately $2 billion of share repurchase in the quarter and $3.5 billion of share repurchase in 2021.
Over the last decade, we've repurchased over a third of our total shares outstanding on a net basis.
In 2022, we expect to return to more normalized levels of capex as we invest in technology and smart working.
We expect an investment of $180 million to $200 million.
As we've said before, we manage capex like all of our investments on a disciplined return on capital basis.
We also expect to invest organically and inorganically in content and capabilities to address unmet client needs.
Our M&A pipeline is focused on our highest priority areas that will bring scalable solutions to our clients' growing and evolving challenges.
We continue to assess all capital allocation decisions and manage our portfolio on a return on capital basis.
We ended 2021 with a return on capital of 27.4%, an increase of more than 1,500 basis points over the last decade.
Turning now to our balance sheet and debt capacity.
We remain confident in the strength of our balance sheet and manage liquidity risk through a well-laddered debt maturity profile.
In addition, we issued $500 million of senior notes in Q4.
As we said before, growth in EBITDA, combined with improvements in our year-end pension and lease liability balances, increases the capacity we have to issue incremental debt while maintaining our current investment-grade credit ratings.
Our net unfunded -- funded pension balance improved by nearly $500 million in 2021, reflecting continued progress and a result of the steps we've taken over the last decade to derisk this liability and reduce volatility.
This reduction in volatility is significant for many of our clients, who still have pension obligations on their balance sheets.
Current market conditions and funding status are giving many clients a chance to reduce the risk of future volatility related to funding status or regulatory changes.
Our retirement team's insight and analytics in this space can help our clients access new capital to efficiently reduce their risk, often with a partial pension risk transfer, creating a long-term opportunity for us to help our clients manage their balance sheet risk effectively.
In summary, 2021 was another year of strong top and bottom-line performance, driven by the strength of our Aon United Strategy and Aon Business Services.
We returned nearly $4 billion to shareholders through share repurchase and dividends in 2021.
The success we achieved this year provides continued momentum as we head into 2022.
We believe our disciplined approach to return on invested capital, combined with expected long-term free cash flow growth, will unlock substantial shareholder value creation over the long term.

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q4 revenue rose 4 percent to $3.1 billion.

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