KANSAS CITY, Mo.— Lockton Cos. L.L.C. has formed a partnership with 30 privately held brokers in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa to better serve global clients, the Kansas City, Mo.-based brokerage announced today.

The partnership, Lockton Global L.L.P., formalizes longstanding relationships Lockton has had with brokers outside the United States and helps address clients' increasingly global business models, said Lockton President and CEO John Lumelleau.

“We had a large number of clients in the United States that had needs outside the United States; so over the last 20 years, we developed relationships with brokers in distant parts of the world,” Mr. Lumelleau said. The partnership cements those relationships and allows them to offer a more consistent array of services, he said.

Lockton Global, which will operate from Lockton's offices in Kansas City and London, complements the brokerage's existing operations in countries such as China, Thailand and Singapore.

Although the 45-year-old company historically built itself through organic growth, its foreign operations were obtained largely through buying the international insurance and risk management arm of insurance broker Alexander Forbes International Risk Services in 2006.

“When we acquired Alexander Forbes, we began to think about Lockton in a different way,” Mr. Lumelleau said. “We wanted to formalize our non-owned relationships to complement our owned relationships around the world.”

Work on Lockton Global began in earnest only two years ago, Mr. Lumelleau said.

“Like anything worth doing, it's worth doing it right; so we took our time,” he said. “We built a business plan around bringing these privately held businesses together under one banner. The thought process began long ago, but we took the past 24 months to position ourselves.”

In addition to Mr. Lumelleau, Lockton Global will be governed by a board including Barry F. Lorenzetti, president and CEO of Montreal-based BFL Canada Insurance Services Inc.; Jean-Paul Chapellier, director of Paris-based Diot S.A.; Ricardo J. Rosenthal, chairman of Buenos Aires, Argentina-based Makler S.A; and Mark Leysen, CEO of Antwerp, Belgium-based Vanbreda Risk & Benefits N.V.

“By acting in partnership, we deal with each other because we want to, not because we have to,” Mr. Leysen said in a statement. “We have mutually committed to treat every client as our own.”

Mr. Lumelleau said the fact that all the participating members of the partnership are privately held also confers an edge with customers.

“We have felt for a long time that we can compete with any broker in the world at a high level,” he said. “We believe that being private and independent is a competitive advantage for us; and by bringing 30 of the most respected privately held firms in the world together under Lockton Global, we advance that advantage exponentially.”

While he sees plenty of growth opportunities in developed economies, Mr. Lumelleau said the move reinforces the increasingly global nature of insurance and the importance of markets such as Brazil, Russia, India and China. “We see the BRIC nations playing a big part of Lockton's future in the coming decades,” he said.

He also acknowledged that while the partners operate in 85 countries, there may be room for others to join.

“The geographic footprint today is pretty complete, but you never say never,” he said.