Australia-based PSC Insurance Group has acquired 19.6% stake in British insurance venture capital (VC) investor B.P. Marsh & Partners for £15.5m.
Image: PSC Insurance Group has picked up a minority stake in B.P. Marsh. Photo: courtesy of adamr/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
B.P. Marsh also sold an additional £1.5m worth shares that were owned previously by B.P. Marsh Management to PSC Insurance Group.
The UK company’s executive chairman Brian Marsh owns P. Marsh Management.
B.P. Marsh plans to utilize the newly raised capital to expand its existing portfolio. It also plans to continue investing in relatively new financial services intermediary businesses with the objective of becoming the preferred capital provider for the sector.
The British firm is a specialist private equity and venture capital investor in primarily insurance intermediary businesses, and financial services businesses.
B.P. Marsh has investments across the UK, USA, Europe, Australia and Asia and it usually takes initial minority stakes by investing up to £5m in first round funding.
The investment structure of the British firm is said to be flexible and also provides provision of debt funding to investee firms. B.P. Marsh claims to be a long term investor which does not have mandated exit timelines.
The largest shareholder in the UK-based insurance venture capital investor will continue to be Brian Marsh with a stake of around 45%.
Founded in 1990 and listed in 2006 on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange, B.P. Marsh had invested in 48 businesses as of June 2018. Its book equity had grown from £27m at listing to £98m, revealed PSC Insurance Group last month.
On the other hand, PSC Insurance Group is engaged in business acquisition, establishment and turnaround in the insurance services industry.
The PSC Group features a portfolio of businesses ranging from start-ups to mature businesses. It manages a diversified insurance intermediary business with operations across Australia, New Zealand and the UK.