M&M Agency CEO: Acquisition of Employee Benefits Specialist Brings Balance

David Eslick, chairman and chief executive officer of Marsh & McLennan Agency LLC, said his company's acquisition of Trion Group Inc., the largest privately held employee benefits specialist in the United States, is all about balancing his company's strengths.

"We are looking to have a very balanced model toward the capabilities we can deliver to our clients-- commercial property/casualty needs, employee benefit needs and personal lines needs," he said of his company, a subsidiary of insurance broker Marsh Inc. "We need a business that has equal strength in all those areas."

Trion, which has $74 million in annual revenues, is the 30th largest insurance consultant and broker in the United States and offers a mix of consulting, brokerage, group disability and life, absence management, voluntary benefits, and benefit administration services, MMA said in a statement.

Eslick said another attractive quality of Trion was that its leadership is in their late 40s to early 50s and "have shown great strategy in building a business" yet still have many years to continue the company's success. "We fell in love with the whole organization. It's a world-class opportunity for us."

Marsh & McLennan Agency, established in 2008 with a focus on the middle market to the lower end of the middle market (BestWire, May 3, 2010), is looking to capture the market space of about $30 billion in revenue.

"We're really a start-up company." Eslick said. "We got to find significant platform firms as we are building our infrastructure-- we need all their capabilities."

Trion is the sixth acquisition MMA has made since embarking on its platform-building strategy in November

2009. Over the last 13 months, it has acquired Insurance Alliance, NIA Group, Haake Cos., Thomas Rutherfoord Inc., and Bostonian Group.

With the addition of Trion, MMA has gone from "not even hitting the radar screen" to becoming the 12th largest insurance agency in the United States, with annual revenue of about $260 million, Eslick said.

As for additional acquisitions, "we are very happy with the momentum that we have, and I'm sure there will be more to be announcements to come," he noted.

Trion's four principals, Ed Garno Jr., Ed Garno III, Dave Oberkircher, and Chris Veno will continue to lead Trion as part of MMA and the company will stay based in Conshohocken, Pa., MMA said.

In May, Eslick said MMA's goal was to attract quality entrepreneurial firms that have a big market share in the middle market and who differ around what types of businesses they serve and what types of industry specialties they have (BestWire, May 3, 2010).

Marsh & McLennan Cos. is the number-one ranked global insurance broker, with 2009 revenue of $10.5 billion, according to Best's Review.

(By Caroline Saucer, editor, BestWeek: Caroline.Saucer@ambest.com)