Medical insurance firm seals 18th deal of the year
CHASE Templeton, the Lancashire private medical insurance specialist, has snapped-up an Essex-based firm – its 18th and last deal of the year.
The company, which is backed by Manchester private equity investor Palatine, is an active consolidator in a highly fragmented PMI market.
Its latest purchase is Healthcare Partners, which traded under the Avanti Healthcare brand, and which brings a further £6.8m of annual premium income (API) and more than over 1,500 clients to the Darwen business.
Around 60% of the firm’s income is generated through SME policies, further strengthening Chase Templeton’s position in its core market.
Following a string of bolt-on acquisitions, including deals with Atlas Consulting Group and Consilium Employee Benefits, Chase Templeton has now added some £40m API to its books in the last three months and £55m in 2015 as a whole.
Jeff Tate, Chase Templeton’s M&A director, said : “Avanti brings to us not just a sizeable but a high quality SME client base as indeed did Atlas and Consilium. These and other acquisition, completed and to be concluded, place us firmly on the path towards becoming one of, if not the, key national player in the crucial SME space.”
He confirmed that Avanti would be Chase Templeton’s last major acquisition this calendar year but added that further significant deals are pipelined for the first quarter of 2016.
Braintree-based Avanti Healthcare was founded in 1996 by chief executive Glen Smith who plans to focus on his travel insurance business.
He said: “I and my colleagues have spent nearly 20 years nurturing Avanti Healthcare into a very successful, well-respected and well-known specialist broker. When I decided to focus resource and attention on our growing travel business I sought a buyer who would not only let me realise the value of assets, but inspire confidence that Avanti Healthcare clients would continue to benefit from the best possible advice and service.”
Avanti’s SME clients will be serviced via Chase Templeton’s corporate centre of excellence at its headquarters in Darwen, Lancashire. Nearly 1,000 private individual policies will be managed by in Bridgwater, Somerset.
Founded in 2002 Chase Templeton now protects in excess of 110,000 lives, manages nearly £150m in API and employs over 100 staff in Darwen, Bridgwater and a new base in the South East, which opened in Bromley last month.
