For the year, net income improved 130 percent, or $228 million, going from $176 million, or 33 cents a share, to $404 million, or 74 cents a share. Revenues were down 1 percent, or $109 million, from $11.8 billion to $11.7 billion.

For its four individual business segments, insurance services', which includes insurance broker Marsh and reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter, revenues dropped 10 percent for the year, from $6.2 billion to $5.6 billion.

Kroll, MMC's risk consulting and technology group, saw revenues increase 133 percent, from $405 million to $946 million. Mercer consulting rose 4 percent, from $3.6 billion to $3.8 billion. The company's investment arm, Putnam, saw revenues drop 12 percent, from $1.7 billion to $1.5 billion.

For MMC, 2005 was a year of tremendous adjustment after settling allegations of kick-backs and bid-rigging at Marsh brokerage over the placement of insurance with carriers paying lucrative volume-based contingent commissions.

The company paid $850 million into a settlement fund to end the investigation. As part of the agreement, the company gave up contingent commissions, which made up a substantial portion of its revenues.

Loss of the commissions meant the company had to reduce head count and abandon unprofitable accounts that were considered too small for Marsh to handle.

“We will never be the old Marsh,” said Mr. Cherkasky. “We can't afford to be.”

He said he is cautiously optimistic that business trends will improve and that all segments of the business will improve this year into next–except Putnam.

While the investment arm, which was hit by its own securities scandal over mutual fund trading, still has a way to go to profitability, Mr. Cherkasky said it is beginning to stem the tide of lost business and is on the way toward improved financial results.

Mr. Cherkasky said he believes MMC is on the road to regaining historic levels of earnings, but he would not venture to say how soon that would be.

In 2006 the litigation environment should also become less intense, said Mr. Cherkasky, and “go down to normal levels for this industry.”

The fourth quarter included a $40 million expense in connection with litigation and related matters, MMC said.

Analysts David Small at Bear Sterns and Brian Meredith at Bank of America said they were disappointed with MMC's results, as the company's divisions missed margin estimates.

Consensus estimates for operating income per share was 31 cents, versus MMC's 28 cents a share, which excluded noteworthy items and stock options expense.

The analysts noted the disappointing news was in part due to the reporting of revenues of Sedgwick Claims Management as discontinued operations.