£5m-turnover insurance brokers snapped up
A £5m-turnover insurance broker based in York has been snapped up by PIB Insurance Brokers
D E Ford, which is backed by global asset manager the Carlyle Group, is one of the UK’s largest chartered independent brokers of insurance.
It was established in 1976 with expertise in commercial, religious, charitable and care sectors.
PIB was founded in 2014 and is a trading company of £7.7m-turnover Cooke & Mason, based in Retford in Nottinghamshire.
Its acquisition of D E Ford will give the York company access to “significant” financial resources, supporting further acquisitive growth.
Managing director Chris Greenall and the management team at D E Ford will continue to lead the business following the completion of the deal.
Greenall said: “The investment from PIB will help build on the strong platform and excellent reputation that the business enjoys and all of our team are thoroughly looking forward to the challenge.”
Shareholders of D E Ford were advised by KPMG’s Stewart Cape and Nasim Sharf of Rollits corporate team.
Christian Mayo, head of corporate finance at KPMG in Yorkshire, said: “There is an appetite from the investment community for high quality, specialist insurance brokers in the UK regions. For D E Ford, the deal with PIB provides the financial firepower to help the management team to accelerate the growth that it has delivered in recent years.”
The D E Ford deal follows the acquisition of independent insurance broker Marshall Wooldridge, which has offices in Leeds and Rotherham, by specialist sector investor Global Risk Partners in September 2016.
