Inflexion, a leading European mid-market private equity firm, is pleased to announce it has entered an agreement for the sale of its investment in David Roberts & Partners (“DR&P”), a leading UK insurance broker, to BMS Group, an independent specialist insurance and reinsurance broker.
Founded in 1977, DR&P is firmly established as one of the fastest growing UK brokers, and is listed as one of the UK’s leading independent insurance brokers. DR&P has a team of almost 400 people in 25 offices across the UK and Europe, handling in excess of £620 million GWP for their clients. Inflexion invested in DR&P initially in 2021 and re-invested in 2023 to support further growth of the business.
Together with Inflexion’s support, management successfully pursued a M&A strategy to build a network of strategically aligned businesses in the regional insurance broking market. The business also benefitted from significant investment in its technology infrastructure. DR&P’s industry leading organic growth rate of 23%, combined with its thoughtful approach to M&A with13 acquisitions completed in last three years, has generated a tenfold increase in EBITDA alongside a quadrupling of headcount during Inflexion’s investment. The business enjoys 95% client retention and has active clients in 46 countries worldwide, despite being UK only focussed when Inflexion invested.
Inflexion’s exit of DR&P follows its previous highly successful investment in Bollington Wilson which was sold to US-listed Arthur J.Gallagher in 2021 following a transformational merger and five subsequent acquisitions which delivered EBITDA growth of 133%.
Our partnership with DR&P has been both highly productive and richly rewarding for all involved, a testimony to the tremendous skill and energy of such a talented management team in delivering industry leading organic performance alongside thoughtful and impressive acquisitive led growth. It also marks Inflexion’s second highly successful investment in the sector. We would like to thank the entire team for their hard work and wish them all the best for the future.
We are proud of what has been achieved with the support of Inflexion over the past three years. Their investment has allowed us to build a market leading business in the UK insurance market. We believe there are significant opportunities for further growth ahead of us.
John Page, Chief Executive, DR&P
