Brian Duperrault has emerged from the latest bout of musical chairs at Marsh & McLennan (MMC) in the hot seat of the beleaguered broking and risk management group.

The former Ace CEO and Chairman faces a bulging in-tray full of disgruntled investors' letters, reports of takeover interest from rival Willis and analyst calls for the break-up of the MMC empire.

Mr Duperrault took the top job last week. Former CEO Michael Cherkasky, who was fired in December, was widely credited with negotiating the group's $US850 million ($955 million) settlement with then New York Attorney-General Eliot Spitzer for alleged price-fixing when he joined MMC in 2004. But he came under fire last year as the company's growth stagnated.

One of his last acts at MMC was to appoint Daniel Glaser as CEO of MMC's flagship brokerage unit Marsh to replace Brian Storms, who was ousted in September amid mounting investor concerns.

MMC Chairman Stephen Hardis offered this blunt assessment of the reasons for Mr Cherkasky's departure.

"MMC's financial performance in 2007 has fallen far short of our expectations. The board has taken this performance into account, and listened to concerns raised by some of the company's largest shareholders in recent quarters, in making this change."

In the second round of executive rationalisation in the space of four months, MMC has reorganised Marsh into two business units. The US/Canada business went to former Willis Chairman Joseph McSweeny, while Alexander Moczarski now heads the International division.

The reorganisation was accompanied by much bloodletting, with both the US COO and Americas CEO being shown the door.

Given the turmoil at the world's biggest broker, Willis' renewed interest could not have come at a worse time. While Mr Cherkasky was seeing out his lame duck tenure, CNBC reported on January 18 that Willis CEO Joe Plumeri had sent a letter of interest to MMC's board.

This marks the second time Willis has been linked with Marsh in the past 18 months. In late 2006, the UK's Sunday Times reported Willis had made "an informal bid" for its larger rival. The bid was reportedly backed by private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), the company that took over Willis in 1998 and refloated it in 2001.

KKR is not thought to be involved in this renewed offer, but, given the relative size of the brokers - MMC's market capitalisation of $US10.4 billion ($11.71 billion) is double that of Willis, and it employs more than four times as many workers with 55,000 global employees - Willis would need some hefty outside financial backing to swallow its much larger rival.

Another, more intriguing, possibility, is that the Willis letter was a well-timed shot across MMC's bows and represents a marker for a future tilt at Marsh. Many investors would welcome a break-up of the group, whose consulting businesses aren't seen as having any appreciable synergies with the broking business.

Ironically, the man supposed to be behind the offer, Willis Chairman and CEO Joe Plumeri, has an avowed aversion to growth via acquisition, telling brokers at last year's NIBA Convention he favours organic growth.

"Why is this industry so fixated with consolidation? If we ran the business correctly there shouldn't be any need for consolidations," Mr Plumeri said.

The group is coming under intense pressure from institutional investors such as KJ Harrison, which filed a shareholder resolution last November calling for MMC to spin off its Kroll risk consulting and technology arm and Mercer consulting business.

And reports that activist investor Nelson Peltz is buying MMC shares via his Trian Partners vehicle with a view to forcing change will not make Mr Duperrault's task any easier as he attempts to make sense of the MMC labyrinth.