The Ardonagh Group has now completed its acquisition of the insurance and reinsurance broking operations of BGC Partners, adding significant growth to its broking operations and building on its ambitions to deliver capital solutions for insurance and reinsurance clients.
With the acquisition, Ardonagh has now added Besso Insurance, Ed Broking, and Piiq Risk Partners to its stable of broking brands, which already encompassed Bishopsgate, Compass London Markets, Inver Re and Price Forbes, which all make up the Ardonagh Specialty and Capital platform.
The $500 million acquisition from BGC has propelled Ardonagh to become the largest independent specialty broker in the London market, with offices also located across the globe.
Ardonagh Specialty and Capital will have a combined $450m revenue, placing more than $5 billion GWP on behalf of clients through offices located in France, Germany, Turkey, the UAE, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China, Australia, South Africa, Chile, Brazil, the USA and Bermuda.
Including the Ardonagh Advisory, Ardonagh Retail and Ardonagh International platforms the Group now places $13 billion GWP and has $1.4 billion of annual revenue.
The naming, as Ardonagh Specialty and Capital, speaks to the firms ambitions to provide capital-agnostic insurance and reinsurance solutions and reinsurance leader Steve Hearn will now also take on the Capital piece of the puzzle for Ardonagh.
The Ardonagh Specialty leadership team features James Masterton as Chairman of Specialty Broking, Andrew Wallin as CEO of Specialty Broking, Steve Hearn as CEO of Reinsurance and Capital and Antony Erotocritou as CFO.
James Masterton commented on the completion of the acquisition today, “I am especially excited to welcome approaching 900 new colleagues to Ardonagh Specialty. We have known and admired many of them for years. Together we now have a unique opportunity to build a preferred home for talent and the number one choice for clients on a truly global scale.”
Steve Hearn added, “I’m very much looking forward to the opportunity to lead Inver Re and grow Ardonagh’s Capital Solutions business. With the scale and backing of the Group and its investment in data science, we have the opportunity to become a top 5 global reinsurance broker and provide a credible independent choice for clients.”
Andrew Wallin also said, “The businesses within Ardonagh Specialty are known for delivering high calibre solutions to blue chip clients and the brands joining today are a great addition to that family and the wider Ardonagh Group. The combined scale of our platform allows us to invest even deeper in our talent, our focus on technological development and our actuarial and analytical capabilities to benefit all our brands, delivering a powerful combination of scale, placement expertise and a personal service, all in support for our clients.”
Commenting from the BGC side, Howard W. Lutnick, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of BGC, said, “We are pleased to have completed the sale of our Insurance Brokerage business to Ardonagh which delivers enormous value for our shareholders. The approximately $535 million in gross proceeds provides us with significant resources to continue repurchasing our shares and/or units and to accelerate Fenics growth.”
BGC also said that the deal amounted to approximately $535 million in gross proceeds for it, subject to limited post-closing adjustments.
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