Seventeen Group has acquired Dashwood Brewer & Phipps (DB&P), one of the UK’s longest-established independent Lloyd’s brokers, giving the group a London market platform for the first time.
DB&P was founded in 1919 and has operated in the Lloyd’s market for more than 50 years. It will keep its brand and regulated status, sitting alongside retail broker James Hallam and managing general agent Touchstone Underwriting as the group’s Lloyd’s arm.
Louis Belcourt has been appointed managing director of DB&P and will join Seventeen Group’s executive committee. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Oliver Thorne, chief executive of Seventeen Group, said the deal established significant London market capability as a foundation to grow the group’s UK and international presence.
“This acquisition brings together two family-owned independent businesses with remarkably similar legacies and cultures,” said Thorne.
The group said combining DB&P’s expertise and international distribution with its own specialist businesses would create opportunities for new facilities, new territories and placements between group companies. Keeping DB&P as a separate brand also keeps a clear line between Seventeen’s retail and wholesale operations.
Belcourt said the business would carry on as an independent Lloyd’s broker under its own name, keeping its specialist expertise, autonomy and culture.
He said choosing a UK-based owner without an existing international presence had been important, so DB&P could keep trading with its partners free from potential conflicts of interest.
That point speaks to a wider concern in wholesale broking. As large consolidators buy London market brokers, overseas producing brokers that send business to Lloyd’s can find their wholesale partner owned by a rival in their own market. DB&P’s choice of buyer is designed to avoid that.
The deal comes days after Seventeen Group created two senior roles to support further acquisitions, hiring Stephen Smith from Gallagher as chief broking officer and Matthew Crisp from Howden as group chief operating officer. Smith’s remit covers broking and placement strategy across the group, which now includes a Lloyd’s broker.
It continues a busy year of deals. Seventeen added Citrus Healthcare and Smith England Insurance Brokers to James Hallam in March, as Insurance Business reported at the time, and bought Gibraltar’s Senate Insurance Brokers in July, its first deal outside the UK.
For overseas brokers placing business through DB&P, the message is continuity: the same brand, leadership and trading relationships. Belcourt’s emphasis on a buyer without an international network is aimed squarely at them.
For the wider market, the deal shows mid-sized consolidators moving up the value chain. Owning a Lloyd’s broker lets Seventeen place its own specialist business in London rather than relying on outside wholesalers, and build facilities across its retail and MGA arms.
With large international groups slowing their UK buying, independent Lloyd’s brokers that value their neutrality may find UK-owned buyers increasingly attractive.
