Dutch claims firm buys UK loss adjuster Woodgate & Clark

Dutch claims firm Van Ameyde has bought the entire share capital of UK loss adjuster Woodgate & Clark, Insurance Times can reveal.

The business was previously owned by the company’s joint managing directors Michael Woodgate and Richard Clark, who each held a 50% stake.

Van Ameyde’s chief executive Piet Middelkoop and board member Pieter den Dikken have joined Woodgate & Clark’s board as non-executive directors.

The company will keep its name and both Woodgate and Clark will remain with the business along with the rest of the staff.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Woodgate told Insurance Times that there will be no job losses as a result of the deal.

He said: “There is absolutely no question of any redundancies. The deal doesn’t need that.”

He added: “Business as usual is what the deal’s about. The only difference is that there has been a substitution of shareholders.”

The deal with Van Ameyde, which currently has no UK business that competes with Woodgate & Clark, means the company has avoided a takeover by private equity or one of its UK rivals.

Woodgate said: “Our view has always been that the returns private equity require to make their models work are beyond the reach of normal loss adjusting trading.

“If you look at the adjusters with private equity, the trend has been that, to make the numbers make sense, they are obliged to provide a multiplicity of services – and they move away from traditional adjusting. We like what we do and we know what we do so this worked for us.”

He added: “A trade sale [to a UK competitor] wouldn’t have appealed at all.”