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Steadfast remains open to acquisition opportunities in both the broking and underwriting agency space as it looks to further its roll-out of new technology to brokers.
Speaking after the announcement of its record half year results, Robert Kelly, CEO and managing director of Steadfast, said that the firm remains open to acquisitions across its business as it seeks both organic and non-organic growth.
“We are continually working on acquisitions but we are also continuing to be diligent about what we want to do,” Kelly said.
“The fact that we bought Whitbread shows you that we look for quality, sustainable businesses that have been around for a long time and so we are not usually involved in anything that has not got the track record that appeals to the longevity of what we want to do at Steadfast.”
On the underwriting agency side, Kelly said the firm continues to see opportunities and will look at acquisitions following the Whitbread deal, which saw Axis join the underwriting agency network last year.
In the first half of 2018, Steadfast had a net total investment of $121 million, which included a $100 million capital raising for the acquisition of Whitbread. The firm has also increased its stake in global broker network unisonSteadfast to 40%.
Kelly said the business will look to utilise this global connection over the coming period to secure better deals for its brokers.
“We are well underway with getting the aggregation of all of the gross written premiums around the world and putting it together. The international insurers are rather eagerly waiting to see how they can benefit from using the aggregation of those premiums to do better deals for the unisonSteadfast clients around the world,” Kelly said.
While Steadfast brokers placed a record $2.6 billion in GWP over the half, Kelly said that the growth in the firm’s AR network was a particular highlight.
“A big increase in our authorised rep network shows the distribution in general insurance in particular is moving in a wider range,” Kelly said. “People are becoming authorised reps, they are taking themselves to AFS licensees and saying a small, hardy business can be very sustainable acting under the umbrella of a large business.
“We are pleased to see a lot of those authorised reps are coming into our business, and we are very pleased to have them.”
