Marsh & McLennan Cos Inc’s (MMC) second quarter earnings of 33 cents per share were in line with Zacks Consensus estimate. However, as a result of goodwill impairment charges associated with the sale out of Kroll Government Services, its U.S. government security clearance screening business, in the second quarter of 2009 the company reported a loss in the quarter. The company reported a net loss of $193 million or 37 cents per share, compared with net income of $65 million or 12 cents per share in the prior-year period. The sale of Kroll was completed in the second quarter. In relation to this sale, the company evaluated Kroll’s overall goodwill for impairment. Consequently, the company realized a non-cash charge of $315 million or 60 cents per share. The company also experienced an investment loss of $31 million in the quarter, driven by mark-to-market declines ...

Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc. (MMC) announced first-quarter adjusted earnings of 40 cents per share, which missed the consensus by 3 cents.

Earnings for the quarter came in a penny shy of last year's profit of 41 cents per share.

However, Marsh & McLennan's share price is up over 6% today.

The company's risk and insurance services, consulting and risk consulting and technology businesses saw revenue declines during the quarter, as total sales declined 13% from last year to $2.63 billion.

The consensus for the current year has dropped to $1.56 from $1.59 over the past month, reflecting downward revisions by 3 of 15 covering analysts.

The Zacks #4 Rank ("Sell") is currently moving on low volume of 4.8 million shares, against the daily average of 6 million.

"MMC" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?Zacks Investment Research

Marsh & McLennan's (MMC) 4Q08 adjusted operating income from continuing operations came in at $192 million, or $0.37 per share, 5 pennies ahead of our estimates. Strong margin improvement in the Risk and Insurance Services coupled with improved client retention was impressive during the quarter despite interest rate declines and the strengthening of the US dollar.Also, the company experienced decent expense reduction as a result of its well-executed restructuring initiatives. The results for coming quarters should somewhat benefit from improved pricing, which will be largely offset by recent strength of the US dollar and reduced revenues from the consulting business, due to ongoing weakness in economy.As such, we maintain our Hold recommendation on the shares with a 6-month target price of $19.25 per share. Read the full analyst report on "MMC"Zacks Investment Research

Maverick CapitalMaverick Capital Management Holdings AnalysisThis post is being written as part of HedgeFundBlogger.com's Investment Securities Tool which analyzes the holdings of hedge fund managers.Lee Ainslie started Maverick Capital back in 1993 with $38 million. Nowadays, the fund is worth $10 billion. Ainslie, like many of the other fund managers I've profiled, has a background rooted in learning from legendary great Julian Robertson at Tiger Management. So, due to the fact that these proteges learned from the best and have had great success running their own hedge funds, I continually try to find a reason not to follow these funds. And, needless to say I'm never successful. Some contacts over at Maverick have explained that their hedge fund strategy is straight up stock picking, both long and short. They made ...