Lockton International posts 13% growth, and 7% in UK

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EBITDA increased to £15m from £12m

Double-digit growth of its cyber insurance practice and helped Lockton’s UK brokerage to post 7% growth.

Lockton’s UK turnover grew by 7% to £118.5m in the year to 30 April 2013, according to results filed at Companies House this week.

The UK results helped Lockton’s non-US brokerage towards 13% growth to £171.6m, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased from £12m to £15m.

Income from its cyber insurance practice – based in London – grew by over 20% and Lockton International chief executive Mike Hammond predicted “explosive growth” over the next two years.

Protection for directors and officers, financial institutions and professional indemnity also grew above the international average.

The UK business also grew thanks to Lockton’s surge in the US, which places some of its premiums in London. In the UK, Lockton earned £24m of its brokerage from North American clients (2012: £17.7m), compared with £66.5m from clients in the UK (2012: £65.9m).

Globally, the best performers were Thailand – which grew its top line by over 20% and is Lockton’s biggest business in Asia, and Brazil which grew by “mid-teens”, said Hammond.

Turnover also grew by double digits in the Middle East after Lockton opened an office in Dubai in December 2012.

“We won’t be making any acquisitions like our peers,” Hammond told Insurance Times. “We’ll continue to acquire people, which is what drives our growth. And I don’t see us expanding too much beyond the geographic spread where we are now. We won’t be investing in Europe, for instance.

“But we will continue to look for opportunities in Asia, Australasia, Latin America and the Middle East, where an increasing number of insurers and reinsurers are putting their capital down to write business directly.”

Lockton expanded from the US in 2006, when it bought London firm Alexander Forbes. At that time, Lockton made around £100m in commissions and fees from outside the year. This year it will pass £180m, Hammond said.