Slow and steady really does win the race, noted Howard Lickens (pictured), executive chairman of Clear Group as he reflected on the growth of the group, which now emplos over 470 staff across 12 trading locations and handles £225 million in premium. Industrial sized growth is simply not in the game plan for Clear, he said, because it is looking to create harmony and consistency across the group by being highly selective in the businesses it acquires.
Read more: Clear Group makes double swoop
The last several days have been busy ones for the team at Clear which announced its dual acquisition of two brokers – the Coventry and Bedford-based HIA International and the Amersham-based Luker Rowe. Lickens, whose duties will move further into the acquisition and development aspect of his role when the onboarding process of the group’s new CEO Mike Edgeley is fully completed, highlighted that both deals were with brokers his team has known for quite a long time.
“We’re really pleased with these deals. They are high-quality businesses that fit nicely into our model. And from our Brokerbility point of view, this means we’ve kept the talent within the group and the network which is a big plus,” he said. “And with businesses, particularly those like Luker Rowe, those properly independent, well-run businesses, that’s a real addition to our talent gene pool.
“A lot of the [almost 30] deals that we’ve done were succession deals, where the vendors were looking to gradually exit over a period. And that is fine, that’s part of our model but you don’t end up with long-term talent out of that. So, when you get businesses like Luker Rowe, like Morrison, like MPW, these are vibrant businesses that have already sorted out their management succession and that’s really helpful for us.”
Lickens, who stated in a previous interview with Insurance Business that Clear is hoping to do more deals in 2021 than last year, believes there is a key cultural element that is attracting prospective brokers to the group. It might sound like a cliché, he said, but Clear genuinely respects its founding values and runs its business in accordance with those values. The team hold it as essential to do the right thing, not just by clients but also by staff, by vendors, by insurers, by the regulator and by every stakeholder.
Broking is a people business, he said, and those vendors who are now in a position to sell their established and respected business are in that position because they have built their company around people. They’ve formed strong relationships with clients and strong relationships with their staff. The sort of people that Clear wants to attract value those relationships and they are not prepared to let down the people that have placed their trust in them.
“I actually just had a conversation this morning with one of the vendors, who [said] that we get chosen because they are confident that we value those relationships, that we value those people, and we will invest in them,” he said.
It’s not about being a business that looks to make a quick buck and then collapses, he said, but rather about really considering what it takes to build a long-term business, founded on sustainable growth. What is the good in buying businesses and maximising short-term profits by transferring businesses to markets where you can get extra commission in the short-term? It’s easy to make money in the short-term but it doesn’t allow for looking after clients or staff as well as businesses should.
“People are entitled to different views but, in my view, we are better to take that ‘Hare and the Tortoise’ approach where we allow other people to get in the lead while we quietly do what we do in a much more measured way, looking after people,” he said. “And people seldom leave our business after we’ve bought them, because we look after them. It’s that longer-term sustainable approach of looking after all our stakeholders that is our secret in the sauce.”
