A focus on embedding specialties into all its business around the world is the strategy that helped Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group P.L.C. grow its revenue last year, said Group Chief Executive Dominic Burke.

And that focus will continue to drive the company, he said.

JLT's brokerage revenue increased 7.6% to $1.40 billion in 2012, making it No. 7 in Business Insurance's 2013 ranking of the world's largest brokers.

Mr. Burke said the brokerage has made significant progress in markets it considers to be areas of potential growth, including Asia, Australia, Canada and Latin America. And it will continue to “build out” in areas where it sees growth in gross domestic product, he said.

The insurance market remains soft, Mr. Burke said. “There are pockets of firming, but they are not very robust when challenged.”

During 2012, 850 staff joined the company, Mr. Burke said, increasing the company's head count by 12.8%. Of those, 500 were “organic additions” and 350 staff joined through acquisitions.

JLT continues “to look at acquisitions and to be acquisitive,” said Mr. Burke. In May this year, he said, JLT bought two health care and third-party companies: PT GESA Assistance and PT Global Asistensi Manajemen Indonesia.

“We look at a number of companies in quite a lot of depth, but if they are not going to add to the quality of our earnings and our people then we will not do it,” Mr. Burke said.

“It is not about size; it is about growing and enhancing the quality of our earnings, and that makes the process of acquisitions more complex because we have high hurdle rates,” Mr. Burke said. “We are not deal junkies.”

JLT has not made any major acquisitions so far in 2013, he said.

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He noted that the company raised $250 million through a private placement in January. “That's to give us power, together with our own funds, to enable us to be acquisitive — but we are in no hurry to spend it,” he said.

“JLT's balance sheet is now able to sustain more debt” than it was during the tenure of previous CEOs, said Eamonn Flanagan, an analyst at Shore Capital Stockbrokers Ltd. in Liverpool, England.

During 2012, JLT launched Project Insight, a technology platform that enables colleagues to share client information and enhance client relationships, said Mr. Burke. “It is also to enable us to share with clients knowledge related to their particular risks, their particular specialities.”

JLT will not, unlike some of its competitors, charge for the service, he said. “It is not something we will monetize; it is to benefit the client,” he said.

Growth in employee benefits business will continue to be a priority for JLT, said Mr. Burke.

In December, the company completed its acquisition of Alexander Forbes Consultants & Actuaries Ltd. The process of integration of that business continues, he said.

“We are delighted with the response from clients,” he said.

JLT also will continue to grow its reinsurance operations, Mr. Burke said, with the intent of being “more than just transactional” and helping cedents with risk management.

Mr. Burke said the brokerage recently recruited several treaty reinsurance brokers in China.

The “unique selling point” of JLT is that it carves out niches in specialty areas “and does it as well, or better” the the three largest brokers, said Shore Capital's Mr. Flanagan.

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He gave Mr. Burke credit for repositioning JLT as a wholesale broker after previous management tried to steer the company away from that strategy.

Mr. Burke said JLT would not consider entering into primary market sidecar deals such as the Aon P.L.C. and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. arrangement under which 7.5% of Aon's Lloyd's of London placements will be underwritten by Berkshire Hathaway.

“We struggle to understand how (such deals) are in the interest of clients,” particularly at a time when there is excess capacity, said Mr. Burke.

“We, as a firm, are concerned that this is a free ride on Lloyd's — on its intellectual capital and brand — and adds very little to the market,” he said.

The nature of such deals is a concern if it signals “a move to commoditization” of insurance, Mr. Burke said, and endangers the value of specialty placements in particular.

“Lloyd's and the London market are vitally important to JLT's future, as we are a specialty-focused business” that currently represents 24% of all direct insurance premium placed into the Lloyd's market, said Mr. Burke.

“We'd naturally be concerned if Lloyd's remains vulnerable to large swaths of its premium being deprived to it through the proliferation of sidecars,” he said.

Later this summer, JLT's headquarters and London-based business will move to The St. Botolph Building, one of the largest completed developments in the City of London.