How a prime 100 dealer is tackling the ‘tsunami of modifications’ by way of M&A

Graham Firm was one of many largest unbiased insurance coverage companies in the USA, however the prime 100 company just lately ushered the beginning of a brand new period after being acquired by Marsh McLennan Company (MMA), a subsidiary of Marsh and one of the vital lively mergers and acquisitions companions out there.

“It was fairly a journey,” stated Ken Ewell (pictured proper), president and chief working officer of Graham Firm. “I may say proper up entrance, if it wasn’t for Marsh McLennan Company, we most likely 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 stated. However becoming a member of MMA has unlocked higher assets for the agency, permitting it to face a “tsunami” of expertise modifications within the trade.

“We had been effectively on our option to over six a long time of constructing a powerful tradition from the inside-out, attracting the perfect folks, and coaching and persevering with to develop them,” stated Ewell. “Merely put, we don’t have the size, on a standalone foundation, to face the tsunami of expertise modifications coming our means.”

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

The massive query

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

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

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

The choice to affix MMA additionally permits Graham Firm to supply purchasers 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 considering 18 months forward, three years forward, [about] what would drive shopper selection,” Ewell continued. “That was a giant query we requested. Our purchasers need expertise options that enhance their determination making, and what our purchasers need is what we would like.”

Fulfilment of a legacy

Graham Firm got here into the only possession of William “Invoice” Graham IV, within the Nineteen Seventies. Invoice served as president from 1970 to 1999, and at present serves as chairman.

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

“Invoice’s all the time been about what drives shopper selection,” stated Ewell. “How can 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 trade starting to speed up, it shortly realized that it wanted to evolve with it.

“We got here collectively, and Invoice stated, we have now to take a look at this and plan for the longer term,” Ewell stated. “Invoice feels that whereas the ESOP was an amazing completion of his imaginative and prescient for his workers, our partnership with Marsh McLennan Company is the fulfilment of his legacy to his workers, and to our purchasers and future purchasers.”

‘A very simple determination’ for MMA

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

“Graham has been one of the vital extremely revered companies within the insurance coverage brokerage trade 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 trade.

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

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

“We needed to search out the precise companion for them as a result of they’re middle-market to higher middle-market on advantages. We knew that Graham [Company] can be the precise companion as a result of Graham is within the middle-market to higher center market house within the property and casualty space.”

“Over the past two years, Ken and I turned extra engaged and we each determined that every one in every of us can 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 workers in 170 places of work.

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