MMC Poised to Become Reinsurance Goliath

In the move to buy Jardines Lloyds Thompson Group (JLT), MMC (Marsh) is poised to be the biggest global reinsurance intermediary by 40% over Aon.  Both groups have been active in PEO placements and it will be interesting to see the new combined vision.

MMC (re)insurance business to be 40 percent bigger than rival Aon By Peter Hastie MMC’s $5.6bn acquisition of Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group (JLT) will cement the group’s position as the industry’s largest global broker based on (re)insurance revenues and will also create a 40 percent top line differential based on 2017 results.Last year, MMC’s risk and insurance services division posted revenues of $7630mn vs Aon’s total (re)insurance revenues of $6378mn. However, JLT’s risk and insurance division posted revenues of £1065.8mn in 2017, the equivalent of $1396mn at today’s exchange rate of £1:$1.31. On pro-forma terms, this would make the combined group’s top line based on 2017 (re)insurance revenues as high as $9026mn; a significant milestone from Aon’s $6378mn, or 40 percent higher. Earlier today, re-Insurance revealed that a combined Guy Carp-JLT Re will become the largest reinsurance intermediary, overtaking Aon’s reinsurance arm, Aon Reinsurance Solutions Business. Aon’s reinsurance arm posted revenues of $1.43bn while a combined Guy Carp-JLT Re will have marginally higher revenues of $1.47bn based on 2017 reported numbers. While there will inevitably be some fall-out from such a significant M&A, the gap will be the largest between the two firms for over thirty years when they both led a major consolidation drive in the 1990s (see table). It is also the largest ever acquisition undertaken among (re)insurance intermediaries trumping the $2bn Marsh paid to acquire another UK broking heavyweight, Sedgewick, in 1998 and the $2.1bn that Willis paid in 2008 for US retailer Hilb, Rogal & Hobbs. Marsh’s focus on building out its US mid-market business in recent years has seen the group regain its number one position after a few years of revenue pre-eminence by Aon followings its 2008 £844mn acquisition of reinsurance intermediary Benfield and also the particular privations endured by MMC at the hands of the near-obsessed former NY attorney-general Eliot Spitzer in 2004-05. Below is a history of major broking M&A between US and UK broking firms. The big, once again, are set to get bigger.

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