The wider Irish market has seen a flurry of broker deals in the past five years as it followed waves of consolidation in the UK and. The ultimate backers of most of the purchasing vehicles are private equity firms. Assured Partners is controlled by GTCR, a Chicago-based private equity company.
The attraction for financial investors lies in the fact that insurance broking is a fee-based business that delivers steady revenues through the economic cycle, and strong cash flows that allow buyers to service the debt needed to finance further deals. The most active dealmaker in recent times has been Arachas, whose name is Irish for insurance. Arachas was itself acquired in 2020 by Ardonagh, a UK brokerage group that, like NFP, is backed by Madison Dearborn and HPS.