The managing director of brokerage Finn Foster, which recently merged with Indemnity Corp under Steadfast’s NSW ‘hub’, says there could be opportunities for the consolidation of their “specialisms” in the future.
Indemnity Corp and Finn Foster are the first to be merged under Steadfast’s ‘hubbing’ plans, and operate under Insurance and Risk Specialists (IRS) Steadfast although they are also keeping their respective trading names.
Both companies continue to offer the services they did before the merge and there could be further plans to work together on offerings.
“The businesses are quite complimentary,” IRS Steadfast Finn Foster MD Mark Finn told Insurance Business. “There are opportunities to look to consolidate our specialisms, which will allow us to grow the business going forward.”
Finn also confirmed that Wagland Salter & Associates, and DMA Insurance Brokers are in the process of joining the hub and Wagland Salter & Associates has already moved into Indemnity Corp’s North Ryde office. DMA Insurance Brokers, once the merge is complete, will stay where it is in Norwest and maintain its operation in Tuggerah. Finn Foster maintains its North Sydney office.
“The process of bringing these two business into the large group is being done gradually so all the staff in each of the four companies has an opportunity to get familiar within a larger unit and then pick up efficiencies going forward,” Finn said. “We are not going to rush. We want to do things in the right order. However, we are moving as quickly as we can to make sure those efficiencies can be realised.”
Explaining how the brokerages became part of this move, Finn said: “Subsequent to that we were approached by Steadfast with the idea of looking to form the NSW hub, and if we considered it to be a good idea to merge our businesses because we were both selling in 49% to Steadfast and retaining 51%.”
Finn Foster and Indemnity Corp started working together on 1 July in anticipation of the float but were convinced the merger would provide benefits for each company regardless of the IPO.
“We still wanted to maintain the trading name of each business – each business has been going for more than 30 years. We did not want to get rid of those names. Having a group name allowed us to be connected while maintaining our individual identities.”
Finn said that the companies found the idea of making efficiencies, receiving greater back office support and managing expenses to be compelling reasons to take part in the hub. However, he looks forward to the personal challenge: “I wanted the challenge of running a larger group. Each of us had our own reasons for coming together. It provided each of us with a solution to something we were considered.”
