Shares of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. fell 0.7% in premarket trading Wednesday, after the insurance brokerage and consulting services company announced a public offering of 9 million shares of common stock. At Tuesday’s stock closing price of $148.46, the offering, which represents about 4.6% of the shares outstanding, would be valued at $1.34 billion. The company plans to use the proceeds from the offering to fund a part of the deal announced earlier in which it buys certain Willis Towers Watson PLC’s assets for $3.57 billion. Willis Towers and merger partner Aon PLC said the sale of the assets resolves questions raised by the European Commission and other jurisdictions related to the companies’ merger, which was originally announced in March 2020. Aon’s stock edged up 0.1% and Willis Tower shares slipped 0.1%, while futures for the S&P 500 dropped 0.7%.
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