How a high 100 dealer is battling the ‘tsunami of modifications’ via M&A

Graham Firm was one of many largest impartial insurance coverage businesses in the US, however the high 100 company not too long ago ushered the beginning of a brand new period after being acquired by Marsh McLennan Company (MMA), a subsidiary of Marsh and one of the crucial energetic mergers and acquisitions companions available in the market.

“It was fairly a journey,” mentioned Ken Ewell (pictured proper), president and chief working officer of Graham Firm. “I might say proper up entrance, if it wasn’t for Marsh McLennan Company, we in all probability wouldn’t be having this interview.”

Promoting to a a lot bigger agency was by no means a part of the imaginative and prescient for Graham Firm, Ewell mentioned. However becoming a member of MMA has unlocked higher sources for the agency, permitting it to face a “tsunami” of know-how modifications within the business.

“We had been nicely on our solution to over six a long time of constructing a powerful tradition from the inside-out, attracting the perfect individuals, and coaching and persevering with to develop them,” mentioned Ewell. “Merely put, we don’t have the size, on a standalone foundation, to face the tsunami of know-how modifications coming our method.”

The deal between MMA and Graham firm closed on August 1, 2023. Phrases of the acquisition weren’t disclosed.

The massive query

Graham Firm offers enterprise insurance coverage, worker advantages, and surety brokerage providers to corporations in high-risk industries, together with development, actual property, manufacturing and distribution, well being and human providers, and monetary {and professional} providers.

Based in 1960 by William Graham III, the Philadelphia-based agency now instructions greater than $75 million in annual income following important investments in know-how to gasoline its nationwide development.

It has 215 staff throughout its Philadelphia, New York and Washington DC places of work, all of whom will likely be retained after the acquisition.

The choice to hitch MMA additionally permits Graham Firm to supply shoppers a wider array of capabilities and entry to extremely specialised, superior applied sciences, whereas preserving and strengthening its tradition and values whereas offering new profession growth alternatives for workers.

“We had been pondering 18 months forward, three years forward, [about] what would drive shopper alternative,” Ewell continued. “That was a giant query we requested. Our shoppers need know-how options that enhance their determination making, and what our shoppers need is what we wish.”

Fulfilment of a legacy

Graham Firm got here into the only real possession of William “Invoice” Graham IV, within the Nineteen Seventies. Invoice served as president from 1970 to 199, and at the moment serves as chairman.

In 2017, the brokerage transformed to an employee-owned enterprise via an Worker Inventory Possession Plan (ESOP), a transfer that aligned with Invoice’s philosophy of investing in his individuals.

“Invoice’s all the time been about what drives shopper alternative,” mentioned Ewell. “How will we develop a enterprise? How can we maintain a high-performance tradition? The ESOP was a fulfilment of his imaginative and prescient.”

However as Graham Firm noticed modifications within the business starting to speed up, it shortly realized that it wanted to evolve with it.

“We got here collectively, and Invoice mentioned, we’ve got to take a look at this and plan for the long run,” Ewell mentioned. “Invoice feels that whereas the ESOP was an awesome completion of his imaginative and prescient for his staff, our partnership with Marsh McLennan Company is the fulfilment of his legacy to his staff, and to our shoppers and future shoppers.”

‘An easy determination’ for MMA

The acquisition additionally has important private {and professional} that means for David Eslick (pictured left), chairman & CEO of MMA.

“Graham has been one of the crucial extremely revered corporations within the insurance coverage brokerage business for many years,” Eslick instructed Insurance coverage Enterprise. “Invoice Graham is an icon and what he began with Graham has been one of many best successes in in our business.

“Ken and I sat on the board of the Council of Insurance coverage Brokers & Brokers for a few a long time collectively. We have now been in a position to construct each our private {and professional} relationship [during that time], particularly within the final 14 years since I began Marsh McLennan Company.”

The CEO mentioned MMA had been seeking to construct out its worker advantages experience after it acquired Trion Group, a gaggle incapacity and life advantages brokerage in 2010.

“We needed to seek out the appropriate accomplice for them as a result of they’re middle-market to higher middle-market on advantages. We knew that Graham [Company] could be the appropriate accomplice as a result of Graham within the middle-market to higher center market house within the property and casualty space.

“During the last two years, Ken and I turned extra engaged we each determined that every considered one of us could be higher collectively than aside.”

White Plains, New York-headquartered MMA is the nation’s eighth-largest insurance coverage dealer, with greater than 10,000 staff in 170 places of work.

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