NEW YORK—Marsh & McLennan Agency L.L.C. has acquired Houston-based Insurance Alliance in the first of what it says will be a series of planned acquisitions to build out the small- and middle-market agency.
Terms of the deal, announced Thursday, were not disclosed.
Established in 1992, Insurance Alliance has $15 million in annual revenue and has more than 1,500 commercial clients throughout the Southwest, primarily in Texas, Marsh & McLennan Agency said.
Woody Woodard, Insurance Alliance's chairman, has been named chief executive officer of Marsh & McLennan Agency's new Southwest operations, while Insurance Alliance executives Jim Berger and Jim Tomforde have been named chief operating officer and vp-sales of the operations, respectively.
The announcement of its first deal comes more than a year after Marsh Inc. said it would launch the agency to serve the property/casualty, risk management and employee benefit needs of companies nationwide that generally have less than $100 million in revenue.
Insurance Alliance is “a really good, high-quality organization that's right in the sweet spot of what were looking for…from a middle-market standpoint,” said David Eslick, chairman and CEO of Marsh & McLennan Agency.
“We said our platform has to be $10 million to launch a region, but more importantly we said it's got to have the right leadership and leadership we can leverage, and (Insurance Alliance has) got that,” he said.
As part of Marsh & McLennan Agency's “hub and spoke” strategy, Insurance Alliance will serve as the platform for its Southwest region and will begin acquiring smaller, fold-in agencies, Mr. Eslick said.
He noted that Marsh & McLennan Agency has identified about 10 geographic regions where it will acquire similar platform companies.
Mr. Eslick said the agency has “stayed disciplined” in making sure that it has the right hubs in place before it starts focusing on acquiring the “spokes.”
“We expect there will be more announcements between now and the end of the year, and we think there will be a lot of announcements next year,” he said.
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Copyright © 2010 Crain Communications, Inc.
