The UK’s booming ‘freelance’ industry has attracted private equity house Dunedin, which supports Kingsbridge, a specialist insurer for freelancers and shift workers.
Dunedin purchased a £33 million stake in the Tewksbury-based broker from competing firm Livingbridge, which bought it in 2014, according to
The Telegraph.
This transaction is Dunedin’s second financial services deal for the year, as it had bought a stake in consultancy firm Alpha in February.
AXA and Barclay’s wealth are among Alpha’s clients.
Dunedin aims to cash in on the growing ‘gig economy’, with self-employed workers benefiting from apps and websites such as Uber, Airbnb, Etsy and TaskRabbit.
One example is CitySprint, a Dunedin-backed courier company that has a network of self-employed van drivers to offer delivery services within the day.
According to the Office for National Statistics, the number of self-employed Britons is at a 40-year high, and composes around 15 per cent of the UK workforce.
Kingsbridge has a £7 million annual turnover selling freelance workers compliance and liability cover, and it operates in various sectors including aerospace, banking and finance, rail, automotive, and information technology. Dunedin plans to grow Kingsbridge globally and enter new sectors such as insurance for British contract workers employed overseas.
Steve Wynne, founder and current head of Kingsbridge, told
The Telegraph: “We’ve achieved significant growth over the last few years and now the time is right to take the business to the next phase.”
Giles Derry, a partner at Dunedin, said Kingsbridge is a “hidden champion” of the specialist freelance insurance sector.
He told the publication: “This is a business which is still at the early stages of its development but has already proven its business plan and established a strong position in a fast-growing market.”
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