XPS Group has agreed to acquire APR Actuarial Solutions, a UK-based specialist actuarial consultancy serving leading insurers and financial institutions, in a deal worth up to £16.3 million.
The pensions and insurance consulting and administration business has agreed to buy the trade and assets of APR, formally Austin Professional Resourcing LLP, for an initial cash consideration of £3.3 million, with an additional £3 million payable by March 2027. A further contingent cash consideration of up to £10 million is payable in years two and three, subject to achieving certain business performance criteria. The deal is funded from XPS's existing cash and available debt facilities.
In the year ended March 31, 2026, APR generated revenues of £10.7 million, equating to a transaction multiple of less than 1x revenue. The deal is anticipated to be earnings enhancing in the first full year of ownership.
APR was established in 2006 and has worked with over 45 insurers and financial sector clients in the last three years, including most of the UK's top 10 insurers, with a client Net Promoter Score of +70.
The firm operates as a specialist actuarial consulting and secondment provider, with more than 70 professional staff supporting flexible delivery for insurers and financial sector clients. Combined with the existing XPS Insurance Consulting team, the enlarged group is expected to provide greater scale and enhanced capabilities across the insurance consulting market.
Critically, APR extends XPS's reach into the UK general insurance sector. The firm holds relationships with over 20 general insurers, giving XPS a foothold in a segment of the market estimated to be worth approximately £1.5 billion annually.
Until now, XPS's insurance consulting practice had focused primarily on the life and annuity market, where it has built a strong presence advising insurers on bulk purchase annuity transactions and related regulatory requirements.
The acquisition is the latest step in a deliberate diversification strategy. XPS reported revenue growth of 13% and organic growth of 12% for the financial year ended March 2026, with the insurance consulting division representing an increasingly significant contributor alongside its core pensions business, which serves over 1,300 pension schemes and administers benefits for around 1.2 million members.
Co-CEO Paul Cuff said the transaction would double XPS's total addressable market to more than £6 billion in less than two years, achieved through a combination of strategic acquisitions and senior recruitment. He described the deal as a step towards XPS becoming a broader financial services firm serving both pension schemes and insurers.
Founding partner Roger Austin said cultural fit and clear strategic growth opportunities were the two criteria APR prioritised when evaluating potential partners, and that XPS satisfied both. He added that the combination would allow both firms to deliver a more comprehensive service to the insurance sector.
David Honour, head of XPS Insurance Consulting, said the acquisition represented a transformative step in the scale of support XPS could provide across the insurance market. Honour joined XPS in October 2024 to launch its insurance consulting practice.
The deal is the second acquisition XPS has made through its insurance consulting arm in little over a year. The group acquired Polaris Actuaries and Consultants in February 2025, a move that expanded its life insurance capabilities and established the template for its buy-and-build approach to the sector. The APR deal follows the same logic but adds the general insurance dimension that Polaris did not provide, giving XPS a genuinely cross-market consulting proposition for the first time.
XPS's own research published earlier this year identified the UK life and annuity market as entering a phase of platform-driven , competition, with insurers increasingly focused on scale, asset origination and operational resilience. Firms without scale or a clearly articulated niche face increasing strategic pressure, a dynamic that makes the consolidation of specialist consulting capacity an attractive proposition for both acquirers and acquisition targets.
XPS was advised by Deloitte, PwC and Osborne Clarke on the transaction. Completion is expected on or around July 31, 2026.
