NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — Marsh & McLennan Cos., the world’s largest insurance broker, said annual revenue should increase an average of five percent over the next three years after stagnating since 2004.The revenue gains as well as cost-cutting measures should produce “mid-teens” growth rates in annual earnings per share through 2009, chief executive officer Michael Cherkasky told investors gathered in New York today. Analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg predicted an average of 16 percent earnings growth in the next two years, excluding non-recurring items.

Cherkasky hasn’t recouped $6.8 billion of the stock market value Marsh lost after a 2004 probe of insurance sales practices deterred clients and forced the company to ban payments from insurers. Revenue fell about one percent to $11.7 billion in 2005 and rose by less than that in the first nine months of 2006.

“We had momentum when I got into the company, but it was going the wrong way,” said Cherkasky, who became CEO in October, 2004, the month New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer sued over alleged bid-rigging with insurers. “Now we have momentum and it’s positive for us.”

Marsh & McLennan shares rose 16 cents to $32.03 at 1.45 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock has increased 23 percent in the past three months and is 31 percent lower than it was before Spitzer sued on October 14, 2004.

The company has undertaken three rounds of cost-cutting during Cherkasky’s tenure. The latest, announced in September to save $350 million in annual expenses by 2008, will cut 750 jobs, centralise data systems, and reduce office space. Cherkasky said today he may eliminate an additional $100 million in annual expenses between 2008 and 2010.

Cherkasky also said he would recommend that the board of directors increase the annual dividend to 76 cents from 68 cents. A stock buyback in 2007 is “possible, but unlikely,” he said, and may depend on the outcome of a potential sale of the company’s Putnam Investments mutual-fund unit.

Marsh & McLennan said it would consider selling Putnam in September. The Boston-based firm’s managed assets dropped to $180 billion, their lowest level since March 1997, earlier this year. In October, deposits exceeded withdrawals for the first time in three years, Cherkasky told investors last month.