NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc. , the world?s largest insurance broker by revenue, said yesterday that third-quarter earnings more than doubled, helped by cost cuts at its brokerage unit.

The earnings beat Wall Street estimates, boosting the company?s shares by 3.6 percent.

?We have well-known but solvable problems,? said chief executive Michael Cherkasky in a conference call with investors. ?But the road will get smoother and the long-term value more evident.?

Cherkasky has struggled to restructure the company after its 2005 settlement of civil charges that it had rigged bids and steered business to insurers that paid hidden commissions. Losing those commissions cost Marsh $850 million a year in revenue and left the company open to a potential takeover, analysts said.

In the latest quarter, Marsh?s earnings jumped to $176 million, or 31 cents a share, from $69 million, or 12 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter.

?There are signs of a turnaround in Marsh?s brokerage business, which suffered from the loss of those commissions,? said Donald Light, an analyst with Celent LLC. Light is an industry analyst who does not rate insurance stocks.

In the latest quarter operating income at the brokerage unit rose to $143 million from $20 million on flat revenue. Cherkasky said in an interview that the cost savings were the result of three restructurings. The last, in September, will cut 750 jobs and save $350 million a year.

Marsh changed management in Europe where earnings were weak, Cherkasky said.

?(These) corporate actions suggest increasing aggressiveness to improve results,? said Alain Karaoglan, an analyst with Deutsche Bank in a report.

Excluding one-time items, the company earned 38 cents a share, beating analysts? average estimate of 36 cents, according to Reuters estimates.

Cherkasky also said that the company?s Boston-based Putnam Investment Management unit had seen positive inflows in October for the first time in three years. He said institutions were moving money into Putnam, which had lost nearly one-third of its assets under management after being embroiled in the mutual fund fraud scandal. It settled the fraud charges brought by New York regulators for $850 million and paid another $80 million to settle charges by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and Massachusetts.

Cherkasky, who came in after the scandals, said he is testing the waters for a possible sale of Putnam and has received ?serious inquiries for buying or partnering with the unit?.

At midday Marsh shares rose to $30.51 up $1.07 or 3.6 percent in New York Stock Exchange trading as analysts remained skeptical whether Marsh had turned the corner. Its high for the year is $33.42.

?It was a decent quarter, but they have yet to see a significant recovery,? said Rob Haines, an analyst with CreditSights. ?They?ve got to get kick-started now, because investors are fed up.?

Since the start of the year, Marsh shares had fallen five percent compared with a gain of four percent in the Standard & Poor?s insurance index .

Its shares hit a year low of $24.20 in August but have risen since on reports that private equity firms, possibly backed by rival Willis Group Holdings Ltd. would try to take the company private.