BGC Partners, a US-based financial services company, has wrapped up its previously announced acquisition of Ed Broking Group, an independent Lloyd's of London insurance broker.
Image: BGC Partners completes acquisition of Ed Broking. Photo: courtesy of rawpixel/Unsplash.com.
UK-based Ed Broking, which is a wholesale insurance and reinsurance broker, is engaged in accident and health, aerospace, cargo, energy, financial and political risks, marine, property and casualty, professional and executive risk, specialty and reinsurance.
The company focuses on matching risks brought to it by expert retail brokers and those looking for reinsurance coverage with underwriters across major markets.
The insurance broker, which has offices in various parts of the world, will come under BGC Partners’ insurance division. The insurance unit of the US firm was established in 2017 following its acquisition of Besso Insurance Group, a Lloyd’s broker having operations in the UK, Brazil, Dubai and Turkey.
Ed Broking is claimed to employ some of the best and hugely experienced people in the industry having expertise across all major lines of business. The acquisition is said to be important for BGC Partners in implementing its strategy of consolidating its insurance brokerage division within the company.
BGC Partners expects Ed Broking’s combination with Besso Insurance to place nearly $2bn of premium in 2018 and bringing together close to 300 combined brokers operating across 10 countries.
BGC Partners president Shaun Lynn said: “We are delighted to complete the purchase of Ed, a company with a great reputation, a global footprint and an excellent management team that will continue to build on BGC’s success in growing the insurance brokerage business.”
Steve Hearn, the present Group CEO of Ed Broking, will take over as head of BGC’s insurance division and will directly report to Lynn.
The transaction, which was announced in last October, saw BGC Partners acquire 100% of the insurance and reinsurance broker, including its broking operations under the Ed brand in the UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, Miami and China. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
As part of the same deal, BGC Partners also acquired Ed Broking’s German marine broking arm Junge & Co. Versicherungsmakler, its UK-based managing general agent (MGA) operations Globe Underwriting, Australia-based Epsilon Insurance Broking Services, and Paris-based Cooper Gay (France).