The European Commission Friday cleared the merger of the two largest human-resources consulting firms in the US, Towers Perrin Forster & Crosby Inc. and Watson Wyatt Worldwide Inc. (WW), but the firms must sell Watson Wyatt's life insurance actuarial software business as a condition.

The firms offered to sell the business, VIPitech, to ease the commission's concerns that the merger would reduce the number of actuarial software providers for life insurance in Europe to two from three.

The combined company, to be called Towers Watson & Co., will be publicly listed.

The merger will create the world's biggest employee-benefits consultancy, displacing the Mercer unit of Marsh & McLennan Cos., according to Shlomo Rosenbaum, an analyst at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co.

-By Peppi Kiviniemi, Dow Jones Newswires; +3227411483; peppi.kiviniemi@dowjones.com
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