Aon · Global Benefits · internal working session

JBT Marel
Global Activate

Where a global benefits platform earns its place — and what we still need to ask them.

Why now

A year and a half old, and already two of everything.

The merger

JBT took over Marel by public offer; closed 2 January 2025, first trading day 3 January, final 2.5% squeezed out 4 February. Chicago HQ, European HQ in Garðabær, dual-listed NYSE and Nasdaq Iceland.

FY2025 10-K · $4.27bn consideration

The programme

“JBT Marel 2025 Integration”. Target $150m run-rate cost synergies exiting 2027; ~$85m run-rate reached exiting 2025. Restructuring envelope revised from $25–30m to $55–60m for footprint optimisation.

FY2025 10-K · Q4 release 23 Feb 2026

Our position

Aon is appointed global broker, and the Activate question came from them. Not publicly documented — this room only.

internal · no public source

Where this comes from

Their filings only. No aggregators.

Group

FY2025 10-K and the 2025 Sustainability Report — totals, US share, sites.

filed 2026 · as at 31 Dec 2025

Countries

Marel’s CSRD Sustainability Statement 2024 — the only country-level workforce table that exists anywhere.

Marel standalone · 31 Dec 2024

Not used

Revelio, Glassdoor, PitchBook, D&B. Revelio puts Marel at 4,227 where the company says 7,200.

their own count beats ours

The group

11,500 people. Thirty-plus countries. A quarter in the US.

11,500employees, combined groupFY2025 10-K · 31 Dec 2025

27%in the United States — roughly 3,100 people% published · absolute is our arithmetic

50+manufacturing and distribution sites, 17 technical centresFY2025 10-K, Item 2

Down from ~12,200 shortly after the merger closed · roughly 700 fewer people in a year, with no country-level attribution published

The only country table that exists

Marel’s European filing hands us eight countries.

Netherlands

2,149

Iceland

709

Denmark

674

Germany

646

Slovakia

341

Poland

176

France

138

Norway

Marel only, 31 December 2024 — before the merger closed. JBT people are not in these numbers, so Germany and the Netherlands are both higher than shown. Source: Marel CSRD Sustainability Statement 2024, disclosure S1-8.

What the filings also give us

They published the complexity factor themselves.

~75% of their international workforce is covered by employee representation bodies. No collective bargaining in the US. FY2025 10-K — group level, this year.

Netherlands

100%

Iceland

99.9%

Denmark

24.6%

Germany

Slovakia

Collective-agreement coverage. Germany and Slovakia sit at 0% CLA but 100% works-council coverage — a different constraint, not a lighter one. The Netherlands carries both: 100% CLA and 91% works council.

What we cannot size

Large sites. No published headcount.

Belgium

Sint-Niklaas, 307,000 sq ft. Top-ten site by floor area. Headcount not published anywhere.

FY2025 10-K, Item 2

Sweden

Helsingborg, 250,000 sq ft. Same — a major plant with no number attached.

FY2025 10-K, Item 2

Brazil · UK

Three plants and two plants. Marel’s Latin America region was 612 at YE2024, but no country split.

regions published, countries not

Marel’s own country table accounts for 6,496 of 7,200 — about 700 people in countries it does not name. Their own locations page says 133 locations in the prose and renders 91 in the directory; neither we nor they reconcile that.

The Activate tiers

Four rungs. One ladder.

Hub

Unified engagement portal. Access, content and communications in one place for every employee.

Hub+

Personalised portal. HR data tailors content to the individual employee.

Core

Customisable benefits experience. Employees choose benefits, retirement, wellbeing and rewards.

Core+

Comprehensive experience. Intelligent modelling, deeper automation, enhanced flex, with wallets and modellers.

Because every tier runs on the same platform and the same data model, a country can move up a rung as its market matures — without a re-implementation.

How each country is assigned a tier

Four factors. Scored per country.

Headcount

Population size determines whether per-employee platform economics work at all.

Complexity

Number of plans, carriers, entities, unions, renewal cycles and statutory constraints.

Flex market maturity

Whether the local market, carriers and employees can actually support meaningful choice.

Expected value

Modelled cost, engagement and administrative return — the test every country must pass.

No country gets a tier because of its flag. It gets the tier its numbers justify.

Before a single discovery call

Two and a half factors are already answerable.

01Headcount — halfEight countries from Marel’s 2024 filing, plus the US as a group percentage. The JBT half has no country split at all.

02Complexity — the statutory halfCLA and works-council coverage published for five countries. Plan counts, carriers, entities and renewal cycles: unknown.

03Flex market maturity — oursWe can score every country today. This one never needed them.

04Expected value — nothing yetNeeds their plan inventory, cost data and renewal calendar. It is also the factor that decides, so it is the whole discovery ask.

The model on their countries

A first placement. Not an answer.

CORE+

CORE

HUB+

Netherlands 2,149

Iceland 709

Denmark 674

Germany 646

Slovakia 341

Poland 176

France 138

Norway 61

Brazil ?

UK ?

Belgium ?

Sweden ?

Vertical: the tier the factors point to · horizontal: headcount, logarithmic · hollow = tier scored, headcount not published — a hollow dot is not a small country · the US (~27% of the group) is off this map because its absolute number is our arithmetic, not their disclosure

The matrix

Which module returns most, where.

Market	People	Flex maturity	Fitting module	What makes it hard there
Netherlands	2,149	mature	Core+	100% CLA and 91% works council — the most constrained, and the biggest
Iceland	709	emerging	Core	99.9% CLA; European HQ, so visibility is high
Denmark	674	mature	Core	24.6% CLA — a genuinely mixed population
Germany	646	emerging	Core	0% CLA but 100% works council; co-determination governs everything
Slovakia	341	limited	Hub+	0% CLA, 100% works council; no vehicle for individual choice
Poland	176	emerging	Hub+	Population may be below platform economics on its own
France	138	mature	Hub+	Mature market, small population — the economics, not the market, decide
United States	~27% of group	mature	Core+	Largest country; absolute headcount is our arithmetic, not their disclosure
Belgium	not published	mature	Core	307k sq ft plant. One line from them changes this row
Sweden	not published	mature	Core	250k sq ft plant. Same
Brazil	not published	emerging	Core	Three plants; Latin America region was 612 at YE2024
United Kingdom	not published	mature	Core	Two plants; no number published anywhere

People: Marel standalone, 31 Dec 2024, from their CSRD statement. Flex maturity and fitting module are our scoring, on two and a half of four factors. Empty cells are the conversation.

The question under the question

In every shared country, there are now two of everything.

Two benefit stacks. Two renewal calendars. Two sets of carriers, and two sets of expectations about what “normal” looks like — in at least the US, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Brazil and the UK, where both halves had sites.

“We are integrating the development programs and digital learning platforms from both legacy companies to build a comprehensive JBT Marel learning portfolio.”
— their own 10-K. Two-system consolidation is already live, and unfinished.

Harmonisation usually has to be argued for. Here it is already running. The platform is how you see both stacks in one picture while you decide.

What we do not know: how far benefits harmonisation has run, and what any works council has agreed. Ask — do not assume.

And they are already moving

Unified systems and local empowerment. Both, in writing.

Q1 2025

$146.9m non-cash charge to terminate the US qualified defined benefit plan — in their first quarter as a merged group.

FY2025 10-K

Their CHRO, March 2026

“Leveraging established unified talent systems, incentives, and expectations.”

Investor Day · Shelley Bridarolli

Same deck

“A unified operating model that empowers local decision-making, increases speed, and improves customer responsiveness.”

Investor Day

One platform, one data model, a different rung per country. They have already written the requirement. We have the shape that satisfies it.

Sequenced by evidence

Prove it at both ends first.

W1Prove — one mature flex market, one large emerging oneTests the model at both extremes: a market where flex is well understood, and a market where scale matters more than sophistication. Here that points at the Netherlands and the United States — on two and a half factors, so not decided.

W2Scale the core — the Core and Core+ countriesThe populations where per-employee economics and flex maturity both justify full choice.

W3Extend reach — the Hub and Hub+ countriesEvery remaining country reaches the same platform: engagement and communications first, choice as the market matures.

∞Continuous — re-score annuallyCountries move up a rung as headcount, complexity or market maturity change. The model is a living allocation, not a one-off decision.

What we need from them

Four asks. The first is one spreadsheet column.

01Headcount per country, as at todayCombined, post-merger. This single column turns the map from a hypothesis into a scoring. Everything else in the model waits on it.

02Plan inventory per countryPlans, carriers, entities, renewal dates. The only route to factor four — and factor four is the one that decides.

03Where has harmonisation already started?Which countries, how far, and what any works council has agreed. Asking this well is worth more than any slide here.

04The renewal calendarRenewal dates decide what is possible in year one, whatever the model says.

Scored, not guessed.

Every number here is theirs. Everything we could not verify is hollow or blank — and each blank is a question, not a gap we filled.