Mike Edgeley: The Clear Group targets ‘a proper global proposition’ through European M&A

Intermediary organisation The Clear Group is planning a “really measured, careful build out” into Continental Europe this year as it seeks to develop “a proper global proposition” that can support clients “both in the UK and abroad”, according to Mike Edgeley, the broker’s group chief executive.

Speaking exclusively to Insurance Times, Edgeley explains that one currently unfulfilled pillar of The Clear Group’s six-pronged M&A strategy is its desired expansion into Continental Europe.

With designs to action this element in 2025 underway thanks to “a very good pipeline of deals”, Edgeley hopes such a move will equip the business with “a proper global placement strategy” that can provide a “full service capability” and “a much more holistic service” for clients based both in the UK and across the Channel.

In terms of where Edgeley wants to cast his net for The Clear Group’s planned European purchases, he admits to being “very interested in Germany” due to it being “a big market”. It is also where The Clear Group established Clear Management Europe in October 2023, led by chief executive Andreas Luberichs.

But, Edgeley is also keeping an eye on developments in the Netherlands – a marketplace he describes as being “so active”, with “really rich” multiples creating “a very expensive auction process” that The Clear Group is “not afraid to get involved with”.

However, Edgeley is quick to dismiss the “expensive” M&A tactic of buying a series of large brokers in multiple countries to quickly develop hefty European operations and a wide footprint.

Instead of treading this well worn M&A path, he plans to utilise the same long-term buy and build model that The Clear Group has implemented over the last 20 years in the UK, starting the process from scratch in one country abroad and gaining a “critical mass” there before considering the addition of another jurisdiction to The Clear Group’s outreach.

He explains: “Our approach, rather than suddenly dropping into lots of different countries, is [to] pick up that [buy and build] model [we have used in the UK] and move it into another country to get – in a good, sensible, measured way – some critical mass in that country, then move to the next one.

“We will start with one particular country in Europe and we’ll look at bringing a series of small brokers together, building out a platform from that.

“We know what’s worked in the UK and it’s about exporting [the same approach].

“What we’re not expecting suddenly is to buy in [and] have a massive presence in two or three countries. It is about really measured, careful build out rather than just buying a huge broker in Germany or the Netherlands.”

Six pillar checklist

After totting up 12 M&A deals in 2024, The Clear Group now employs 1,040 staff based across 42 operating sites and six regions in the UK and Ireland, plus the one entity in Germany. This compares to the 14 locations it owned at the beginning of 2023, which were the workplace of 650 staff.

The intermediary’s acquisitional growth to date has been driven by a 2023 strategy refresh, which defined the aforementioned six pillar M&A plan. This project sought to clarify what the business’ senior leadership really wanted The Clear Group to achieve and look like over the upcoming five years.

Underpinning this strategy were the two existing elements of The Clear Group – its UK retail broker base operation and the additional layer of broker network Brokerbility, which the intermediary bought in 2020. These formed the first two pillars that The Clear Group wanted to invest in.

Edgeley explains that the broker quickly decided on the other four pillars it wanted in its stable thanks to an exercise of colour coding market opportunities – this included building an MGA portfolio, London market presence, Irish footprint and a considered entry into Continental Europe.

The 12 deals completed in 2024, therefore, have all “fit clearly into one of those pillars”.

For example, The Clear Group bought non-standard commercial MGA Accelerate Underwriting in September 2024, as well as Lloyd’s and London market broker Lilley Plummer Risks in October – a deal that “massively accelerates our capability in that area”, Edgeley notes.

Naturally, building out The Clear Group’s UK retail broking heartland has continued to be a prime focus too, Edgeley adds, with the intermediary having three key requirements around acquisitions for this portfolio.

These include sourcing “good quality [brokers] near one of our existing offices, [to] join our existing office [and] give additional capability”, branching out into “a new regional area” or finding and broadening “a specialism” – such as trade credit, financial lines, professional indemnity, employee benefits or risk management.

Examples here include The Clear Group’s purchase of schemes broker CoverMarque last November and its acquisition of Ringwood-based commercial broker A-One Insurance Group in October 2024.

Edgeley describes A-One as being one of the company’s more pivotal deals of 2024, due to it adding a new region to The Clear Group’s portfolio, as well as a “sizeable” 170 employees.

In terms of the scale of the firms Edgeley is keen to snap up, he tells Insurance Times that he is “very comfortable” acquiring businesses with five to 10 staff that handle between £5m and £10m of gross written premium.

“It’s really worth doing because it’s a great way of building our capability,” he adds.

Clear of competition

With The Clear Group completing 10 M&A transactions in 2023 and 12 last year – at the same time as many of its contemporary, mid-sized consolidators, such as Jensten Group, Partners& and JMG Group – it begs the question as to whether there are still ample UK purchase opportunities, or if these groups are left fighting over scraps.

Edgeley feels there is still “plenty” of opportunities to make valuable deals, however.

He says: “As much as the data and statistics seem to indicate that [M&A opportunities in the UK are drying up], it doesn’t seem to be proving the case in reality.

“If you’re the type of business that we are, where you’re not so large that you can still do smaller deals and they are worth doing, then I think there’s still plenty of opportunity out there.

“If you want to have a long-term growth plan, [it has to include] continued build out in the UK because there still is a lot of opportunity. People worry about the market getting smaller and smaller, but we still see as much opportunity in the UK [today as] we saw last year.”

Organic growth

Although acquisitional growth has been important for The Clear Group, organic growth is also “an absolute focus” for the business, Edgeley emphasises.

This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that the intermediary’s initial strategic review in 2021 – prior to its later M&A refresh – centred around making sure its infrastructure was “really solid so that we could carry on growing”.

Part of this, for example, meant ensuring that all of The Clear Group’s businesses were operating from the same systems and networks, rather than each acquired business still utilising its own siloed information technology.

This work took place between 2021 and 2023.

For the financial year starting from 1 October 2024, Edgeley says The Clear Group is tracking to hit 8% organic growth. Although this is lower than its 10% organic growth rate from two years’ ago, Edgeley confirms that it is an improvement on the 5% rate recorded in the intervening years.

For Edgeley, The Clear Group’s internal restructuring will be vital in achieving its organic growth ambitions because the softening market means that “you’ve just got to work a lot harder than you used to” in order to get results.

With this in mind, the broker reorganised its regional teams in Q4 2024 so that product specialists from across the group can more easily collaborate – it did this by creating new job roles, moving regional leaders into specialism head positions that oversee group-wide activity for their particular line of business.

Edgeley explained: “In the last two years, we’ve had a more challenging economic environment, higher interest rates, higher inflation – that’s definitely impacted some sectors. You notice more companies having to tighten their belts in certain sectors for the amount of insurance they’re going to take to cover their risk.

“All the work we have done to put the group onto one software platform and data warehouse will help support our organic growth. It is much easier for all parts of the group to support each other on new business opportunities and existing client service when there’s a single view of the client.”

Getting set for the year ahead

Edgeley is feeling positive for 2025 off the back of actioning these underlying strategies.

“We’re now really well set for what’s coming [this year],” he says.

“As much as the focus is very much on M&A this year, the focus for the next year to two years is [also on] joining those [six] pillars together [and] really driving proposition development in our business.

“We will be spending a lot of time making sure that we interlink the pillars so that we make client experiences as good as possible.

“To do that, you need to be on a very consistent technology platform with very good data, with the right people leading those propositions.

“And that’s what we’re doing – getting the people right, the structure right, using the technology correctly and then really driving that out into the marketplace.”