Liberty Mutual Insurance has closed its $3 billion acquisition of specialty lines insurer Ironshore Inc. from China’s Fosun International, and will make some organizational changes to accommodate its new purchase.
Ironshore will continue as its own entity, with CEO Kevin Kelley remaining in charge, though he’ll report now to Liberty Mutual Chairman and CEO David Long.
The acquisition creates a global specialty business at Liberty Mutual with $6.5 billion in net written premium. Liberty Mutual said it will combine its existing Liberty International Underwriters U.S. business and Ironshore’s U.S. specialty lines business under the Ironshore brand. The combined entity will be the 6th largest writer of excess & surplus lines in the U.S. in terms of 2016 direct written premium, Liberty Mutual said.
Sean Kelly, Ironshore president and CEO of Ironshore U.S., will lead the combined U.S. specialty organization and report to Kelley.
Liberty Mutual added it will keep other things as is. Ironshore’s existing international business, including its Lloyd’s syndicate operation (Pembroke) and Bermuda platform, will retain the same management team, business strategy and Ironshore brand. Ironshore COO Mitch Blaser (also CEO of Ironshore Bermuda and CEO of IronServe), and Mark Wheeler, CEO of Ironshore International, will still report to Kelley.
Liberty Mutual added that there will be no changes to the existing Liberty Mutual Global specialty business outside of LIU U.S. (Liberty International Underwriters).
Ironshore, which launched in 2006, booked $2.2 billon in gross premiums written in 2016, and before the merger was the 9th largest Excess & Surplus Lines carrier in the U.S. in terms of 2016 direct written premium. About 800 people work for Ironshore, which has operations in 15 countries and has three major operating hubs in the U.S., Bermuda and London.
Liberty Mutual has operations in 30 countries and economies globally, and employs 50,000 people in 800 offices around the world. The insurer ranked as the fourth largest property/casualty insurer in the U.S. in terms of direct written premium data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.
Liberty Mutual first announced in December that it was acquiring Ironshore.
Source: Liberty Mutual
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