Insurance and reinsurance broker Acrisure is set to acquire managing general agent (MGA) Volante Global, a provider of niche, specialist re/insurance solutions with 2021 premiums of roughly $350 million.
Under the arrangement, Acrisure will take control of all of Volante’s brands, including Aesir Space, Horizon Europe AG, and all territory-based MGAs such as Volante Germany and Volante Canada.
Based in London, Volante was founded in 2017 and by 2025, it’s expected that its premiums will approach the $1 billion mark.
The MGA is supported by long-term carrier alignment and deep specialty, complex products for insureds, and has a presence in seven countries.
The impending acquisition by Acrisure ends Volante’s relationship with insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund manager, Nephila, which is a subsidiary of Markel Corporation.
At its launch, Volante was backed by A+ and AA+ rated capacity and equity investment from Nephila Capital as its principal equity investor and the Volante Management team as minority shareholders.
“Volante is an important strategic component of Acrisure’s ambitious MGA strategy and accelerates our value chain compression strategy. In particular, we value Volante for being highly skilled underwriters in an entrepreneurial culture given it’s a founder-led company under Talbir Bains.
“Talbir has grown a highly profitable and financially attractive platform in a short period of time. Reaching $350 million of premium in just three years is no small feat and we expect this number to increase substantially over the next few years,” said Greg Williams, Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and President of Acrisure.
Frank Majors, founder and co-CEO of Nephila, commented: “We are delighted for Volante and Acrisure on their new partnership. When Talbir approached us in 2017 for investment capital, we were confident in his abilities as a leader, an entrepreneur and an underwriter. He has achieved tremendous success much faster than we could have imagined, and we are thrilled he has identified a new partnership in Acrisure that will enable him to achieve even greater success in the future.”
Talbir Bains, Founder and CEO of Volante, added: “Nephila has been an outstanding investor and we’ve cherished working together the past four years. When the exploratory process began in 2021, our objective was to ensure that future ownership would match the alignment that we’ve defined and delivered to capital providers.
“From my first conversation with Greg Williams and Grahame Millwater, it was clear that Acrisure was the perfect Partner for this next phase, where Volante’s underwriting integrity and risk intelligence will both be sacrosanct and empowered, respectively. Joining Acrisure will spur Volante’s growth, predicated on delivering the highest underwriting margin to our capital providers.”
The global re/insurance broker says that its MGA strategy looks to capitalise on investments in transformative technology. In fact, in the past several months, the firm has acquired a number of MGA and related platforms, including SUNZ Insurance and Appalachian Underwriters.
Grahame Millwater, President of Global Insurance at Acrisure, said: “Volante was compelling to Acrisure, given its diverse portfolio of risk, unique model providing optimal alignment with underwriting capital, and depth of underwriting talent.
“Talbir has been a colleague and client of mine for over 20 years, and I have the utmost respect for his values, work ethic, and underwriting and analytical excellence. I am delighted to welcome Volante to Acrisure as we continue our journey of building a unique distribution platform with an ability to take our risk portfolio to multiple forms of underwriting capital.”
