Marsh & McLennan Cos. said Friday that it is doing a strategic review of all its businesses but that it has no current plan to shed its Putnam Investments mutual fund unit.
The company, which is the world's largest insurance broker, was responding to a report in Friday's Boston Globe that Marsh had hired Goldman Sachs Group and the investment banking unit of Citigroup Inc. to value its Putnam and Mercer consulting divisions.
The move could foreshadow a sale of the Boston mutual fund company, the Globe said.
But a spokeswoman for Marsh was quoted by MarketWatch as saying, "There are no current plans to sell Putnam." She denied Marsh had hired Goldman or Citi. The parent company is doing an internal review of all its businesses, she said.
Putnam has been fighting asset outflows from its mutual funds ever since becoming the first fund company charged (in October 2003) as part of the trading scandals that erupted that year. Marsh itself had to pay $850 million this year to settle a bid-rigging lawsuit by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
