Ardonagh completes Envest acquisition

Giant UK independent broker, Ardonagh Group, has completed its acquisition of Australian insurance investment and distribution business Envest.

Brisbane-based Envest includes the broking network Aviso Group – which has itself expanded rapidly in recent years to manage $405 million in gross written premium – and 10 underwriting agencies.

The combined portfolio has more than 550 employees, writes more than $800 million in premium and reported $60 million in consolidated revenue for the financial year to June 30 last year.

The $482 million deal was announced in November and completed on Friday.

Managing Director Greg Mullins will continue to lead Envest, operating as part of Ardonagh Global Partners.

Ardonagh’s other Australian assets, Resilium Insurance Broking and Epsilon Underwriting, will sit under the Envest umbrella, operating as normal and continuing to be led by their current management teams.

Adrian Kitchin, Chief Executive at Ethos Broking Australia and Executive Director of Resilium, will become part of the executive team within Envest. Paul Lynam continues in his role as Non-Executive Chairman of Australian operations.

Mr Mullins told insuranceNEWS.com.au he is excited to get back to business under the new structure.

“The big change is that we have two new business in the group, and we are very impressed by those businesses and we are working together well.”

Mr Mullins says he still sees Envest as a “challenger” in the insurance distribution business, despite its increased scale.

“We try not to compete with the big guys in terms of acquisitions,” he said. “There are plenty of other fish in the sea. There are some people we would love to be part of our business and we’ll go pretty hard at those.”

Mr Lynam says Envest is now a “meaningful player”, benefiting from being part of a bigger global group with access to London markets.

“We’ll be writing $1.6 billion in premium, which is significant and should be taken seriously,” he says.

He told insuranceNEWS.com.au reaction to the deal in the market has been “very, very good” and there is a strong pipeline of acquisition opportunities.

“We will be active for the assets that fit the profile we are looking for and our culture, right through 2023, 2024 and beyond” he says.