The Baldwin Group reported second-quarter 2026 commissions and fees of $488.8 million, a 30% increase from $376.2 million a year earlier. The gain was driven largely by acquisitions: organic revenue growth, which strips out the first 12 months of revenue from new partners, came in at 2%, down from 11% in the second quarter of 2025.
That headline 2% figure obscures a genuinely mixed picture underneath it - one that matters directly to brokers and agents depending on which part of Baldwin's platform they work with. The Insurance Advisory Solutions (IAS) segment, Baldwin's core retail brokerage business, actually posted organic revenue growth of negative 2%, driven by a 240-basis-point headwind from client retention (tied to roughly $8 million in annualized revenue attrition from structural changes the company made to that business) and a further 150-basis-point drag from a procedural accounting change. Underwriting, Capacity & Technology Solutions (UCTS) grew 6% organically, driven by strong performance in multifamily and admitted home products. Mainstreet Insurance Solutions (MIS) grew 4%, or 10% once QBE commission resets and Medicare underperformance are stripped out.
CEO Trevor Baldwin separately cited "normalized organic growth of 8%," a figure management uses to strip out those idiosyncratic accounting and integration headwinds and include January's acquired partnerships on an as-if basis. For agents evaluating Baldwin as a distribution partner, the segment breakdown is the more useful signal than either the 2% reported figure or management's 8% normalized one in isolation: growth is genuinely soft in the legacy retail brokerage business right now, genuinely solid in underwriting/MGA capacity, and being weighed down elsewhere by carrier-specific commission changes rather than a broad-based slowdown.
Total revenue during the period was $492.9 million. Adjusted EBITDA grew 37% to $116.7 million from $85.5 million, with the adjusted EBITDA margin expanding 110 basis points to 23.7%.
The headline revenue increase reflects Baldwin's January 2026 merger with CAC Group, a specialty and middle-market brokerage. CAC was acquired for $1.026 billion in upfront consideration: $438 million in cash and 23.2 million Baldwin common shares. CAC Group had revenues approaching $295 million heading into the deal and brought capabilities in natural resources, private equity, real estate, construction, financial lines, cyber, and surety. CAC generated $94 million in revenue this quarter, up 23% from the same period in 2025, and its private equity team won 130 new client accounts in the period - a detail worth noting for brokers assessing how actively CAC's specialty capabilities are being cross-sold into the wider Baldwin platform since the deal closed.
Goodwill rose to $2.65 billion at June 30, from $1.52 billion at December 31, 2025. Total assets grew to $6.17 billion from $3.86 billion over the same period. Long-term debt stood at $2.15 billion, with an additional $302 million drawn on the revolving credit facility. CFO Brad Hale noted on the earnings call that Baldwin's current leverage profile means the company is not currently active in the market repurchasing its own shares - a relevant signal for agents and brokers weighing Baldwin's near-term capacity for further tuck-in acquisitions against its balance sheet constraints.
The company posted a GAAP net loss of $56 million, or $0.42 per diluted share, compared with a net loss of $5.1 million, or $0.05 per diluted share, a year earlier. Three costs drove the shortfall: $45.7 million in net interest expense, $56 million in amortization of acquired intangibles, and $14.7 million in transaction-related partnership and integration expenses.
Adjusted net income was $68.5 million and adjusted diluted earnings per share increased 14% to $0.48 from $0.42 a year earlier. Colleague compensation and benefits rose to $264.3 million from $195.5 million, driven by headcount additions from acquired firms. Amortization expense more than doubled to $56 million from $26 million.
Baldwin's 2% organic growth rate compares with mid- to high-single-digit rates reported by larger peers, including Brown & Brown and Arthur J. Gallagher, both of which reported operating margins around or above 30% in their core brokerage operations, per prior-quarter analysis. Baldwin's own property-focused reinsurance unit, Juniper Re, has been directly affected by what CEO Trevor Baldwin described on the earnings call as a "very deeply soft" property insurance market, with risk-adjusted rate decreases weighing on that business specifically - a useful data point for brokers placing property risk through Baldwin's markets, since it signals continued rate softening rather than a turn in that cycle.
Adjusted free cash flow was $46.4 million, up from $8.6 million a year earlier. The 437% increase partly reflected the absence of large earnout payments that weighed on the prior-year figure. Net cash provided by operating activities was $45.6 million for the quarter.
For the first six months of 2026, total revenue rose 29% to $1.025 billion from $792.2 million. Adjusted EBITDA for the half grew 27% to $254 million, though the adjusted EBITDA margin slipped to 24.8% from 25.2% in the prior-year period. Organic revenue growth for the six months was also 2%.
Cash and cash equivalents were $184.5 million at June 30. The company had $259.4 million of remaining capacity under its revolving credit facility.
Chief executive officer Trevor Baldwin attributed the quarter's performance to the company's acquisition strategy and said near-term headwinds were largely behind the business. "As we previously highlighted, we have largely lapped the idiosyncratic, one-time headwinds that we believe will transition into tailwinds for our business in the back half of 2026," he said.
Baldwin also cited what he described as market share momentum in the company's combined distribution business. "Sales velocity of 30% in our combined IAS business and normalized organic growth of 8%," he said. That 30% sales velocity figure covers the combined IAS business including CAC and Capstone; the legacy IAS business alone posted sales velocity of 19%, a distinction worth noting for brokers trying to gauge how much of Baldwin's new-business momentum is coming from its recently acquired specialty units versus its pre-existing retail operation.
The company's $3B/30 Catalyst Program, an initiative to infuse automation and artificial intelligence into its operations, incurred $6.4 million in transformation costs during the quarter. The program generated $9.5 million in such costs across the first half of 2026. For agents working within Baldwin's systems, this is the kind of investment that should eventually show up as faster quoting and smoother service, ahead of when it becomes visible in the company's own reported margins.
Looking ahead, CFO Brad Hale guided to third-quarter revenue of $485 million to $495 million and organic revenue growth in the mid-single digits - a notable step up from this quarter's reported 2%, and one brokers evaluating Baldwin's near-term trajectory may want to watch against the segment-level detail above, since much of that acceleration depends on the IAS retention headwinds genuinely easing as management expects.
The Baldwin Group represents more than three million clients across the US and operates through a network of acquired insurance distribution firms.
