JLT ‘has the firepower’ for more acquisitions

Jardine Lloyd Thompson has £250m of funding in place and would consider acquisitions at home and abroad if the price was right, according to group chief executive Dominic Burke.

In an exclusive interview with Insurance Times, Burke said that JLT had “the firepower” to make a transformational deal. But he emphasised that the London broker did not need to make such a deal, and would only do so if the culture fit and it could be sure of boosting profits by doing so.

He said: “We have completed 20 acquisitions in the last two or three years, and spent a relatively modest £65m in total, including deferred considerations. I would expect that pace of deal flow to continue.”

He hinted that there could be a number of small acquisitions currently under way.

He said: “We are very keen to develop in Latin America, in Asia, and in our London market and employee benefits businesses as well. All our major

five lines of action are businesses we want to invest in and when we find the right target, we will do so.”

He said JLT would consider buying a reinsurance broker to boost JLT Re, and refused to rule out a transformational deal in the UK retail market.

He said: “We have a finance facility of £250m.

That’s fully committed. We have the firepower if we want to do it. I’m sure we will continue to be observant.” He added that values were “still inflated”.

Burke also reiterated his ambition to expand underwriting agency Thistle to a £100m GWP business by 2011. He insisted that JLT could make the model work, despite other brokers having struggled.

Burke also hinted that additional capital providers to the existing Brit could be announced. “We can forge a great partnership with our capital providers,” he said.

Read the full interview with Dominic Burke.