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Remember when it was revealed earlier this month that the global aerospace operations of Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Plc (JLT) will be sold to Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (AJG)? The deal came to life to address competition concerns raised by the European Commission, which has now approved Marsh & McLennan Companies’ (MMC) swoop for JLT under the EU Merger Regulation.
UK-based JLT had to offload its global aerospace practice after the European Commission found that merging with US enterprise MMC “would result in a significantly concentrated market, reducing the number of main competitors from three to two at EEA (European Economic Area) level and from four to three at global level.”
The AJG transaction, whose closing will coincide with the completion of the MMC takeover, involves all assets within JLT’s global aerospace retail and wholesale insurance broking division. That means operations in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and 10 other countries in Europe, Latin America, and Asia, as well as the assets of British insurance broker Hayward Aviation.
According to the European Commission, this removes the entire overlap between MMC and JLT’s activities in the supply of insurance broking services in the specialties of aircraft operators and aerospace manufacturing. It concluded that the merger would no longer raise competition worries in the EEA.
Now that all the necessary regulatory and competition authority approvals have been satisfied, a hearing at the UK High Court has been set for March 29. Subject to the Court’s green light, the sale of JLT to MMC is expected to close on April 01.
