Giant US insurance broker in advanced sale talks

Giant US insurance broker in advanced sale talks | Insurance Business America

Mergers & Acquisitions

Giant US insurance broker in advanced sale talks

Deal valuing broker at $15bn could be announced this week

Mergers & Acquisitions

By
Matthew Sellers

Photo credit: Citydweller2, used under the Creative Commons license v4.0

With over US$48 billion in premiums, Truist Insurance is the fifth largest broker in the US, seventh largest globally – and this week it looks like it may finalize a majority stake sale to Stone Point Capital and Clayton Dubilier & Rice.

The sale of the stake in Truist could be announced later this week, according to confidential Bloomberg sources. Last April, the company sold a 20% stake to a Stone Point-headed group.

Private equity group Stone Point paid $1.95 billion for the 20% stake, and it is believed that the current valuation is on the same terms as the initial investment, valuing the insurance giant at close to $15 billion – 33% of the total value of the PE firm’s assets under management.

It is still uncertain whether the company’s premium finance business will be included – the original deal excluded that part of the business.

Truist Insurance Holdings employs around 9,000 employees, close to 17% of parent company Truist Financial Corp’s 53,000 workforce. The news of a potential sale follows last September’s announcement by the parent company’s CEO Bill Rogers that there would be “sizeable reductions in force” over the coming year.

Truist Insurance companies include a number of important industry brands including:

Insurance broker McGriff
MGA with wholesale and retail divisions AmRisc
Title insurance specialists Kensington Vanguard
Wholesale and specialty insurance distributor CRC Group
Employee benefit general agency Benefit Mall
Life insurance third-party distributor Crump
Specialty program manager Starwind

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