Steadfast Group Ltd has acquired a majority interest in underwriter MECON Winsure Insurance Group.
It now owns 76% of the MECON business and 100% of the Winsure business.
The acquisition meets Steadfast’s strict acquisition criteria including that it be EPS accretive within the first 12 months of ownership. The final purchase price will be determined based on performance for the year ended 30 June 2015.
MECON Winsure is an underwriting agency that has specialised in providing insurance to the building and construction industry across Australia since 2003. It offers insurance solutions exclusively through broking partners and has offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane.
Robert Kelly, managing director and CEO of Steadfast, which is a provider of services to a network of 285 insurance broker businesses across New Zealand and Australia, said: “We are pleased to add another high quality niche business to Steadfast Underwriting Agencies.
“MECON has been a strategic partner with Steadfast since 2009 and builds on our growing agency offering.
“Despite the fact that MECON is now part of the Steadfast Network we encourage our underwriting agencies to work with all brokers.
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Glenn Ross and his team have built a great business with a strong product and service offering and we are excited to be part of their next growth phase.”
Glenn Ross, CEO of MECON Winsure, added: “We expect Steadfast’s ownership in MECON will ensure that we continue to be a leading supplier in all our products and improve our ability to deliver high quality, innovative products to our business partners.”
Ross said he was delighted that their equity partner Hollard Insurance Group would remain a shareholder in MECON.
“I would like to personally thank our founding equity partner The Hollard Insurance Group for their outstanding support throughout the years and I look forward to our ongoing partnership.”
Richard Enthoven, CEO of Hollard in Australia said: “We are really proud of our longstanding partnership with Glenn and Peta Ross.
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Mecon has been a wonderful success story and we are excited to work with Glenn and Peta, as well as our new partners Steadfast to take MECON to the next level.”
