Caution has reigned in the Spanish insurance sector, which has ended 2024 without any major acquisitions between companies, despite the fact that there have been no shortage of rumors and there are some that seem to be preparing to undertake an operation sooner rather than later.
However, this has not been the case in the world of brokers. They have been the ones who have starred in most of the movements this past year and in 2025 they promise more. Some financial sources count up to 57 operations that have been registered, in a “very atomized” sector that, according to large brokerages, will tend to concentrate more and more in the coming years to gain competitiveness and face the “enormous regulation” which the companies are subject to. Financial sources also highlight the lack of generational change and digitalization as other important factors why smaller brokerages are “being left behind.”
Among these more than 50 purchases, it stands out that just over half of them have been carried out by companies that have financing from some fund behind them, which gives financial muscle to the project. In the remaining ones, the more traditional brokerages have also played their role, forming groups of brokers that are increasingly relevant at the national level.
Who is who?
Among the more than 2,700 brokerage companies in Spain according to the latest report on insurance mediators by the DGS, there are some that are making more noise within the sector due to their inorganic growth in recent years.
The first of them is Grupo Concentra, which ended 2024 with a purchase on the horn: that of López Torrijos. This acquisition, which elEconomista.es gave exclusively, was the last of the year in the broker world, and caused the broker led by the French BlackFin Capital Partners, which owns 70% of the share capital, to close the year with a business of more than 260 million euros in mediated premiums and will exceed 300 employees.
Since the arrival of French capital in 2022, Grupo Concentra has focused its efforts on inorganic growth with five acquisitions, three of them in the Spanish market and two in Portugal, where they have a large business leg. Melior was the largest purchase in the Portuguese country (in 2021), which was later followed by Median and Grupo Portinsurance. In Spain, Segurfer and Winsartorio, although Concentra has been making acquisitions since its creation in 1996, with BLM Brokers and Javier López-Linares at the helm.
RibéSalat, one of the largest independent brokers (without investment funds in the capital) in the country, has been another purchasing brokerage in 2024. It has done so thanks to the acquisition of Cecinco, a firm founded by Ignacio Carriles in 1985.
Howden is another of the most renowned firms in Spain that does not have funds behind it either, but its origin is not Spanish, but British. As explained by the company, its ownership model allows its employees to be the main shareholders. In 1999 they began operations in Spain and, since then, they have acquired dozens of brokers.
This year, the British brokerage purchased Boni Aldaya, a company specialized in the entertainment industry with a special focus on concerts, cultural, artistic and musical events. With this, it has formed a workforce of 1,000 employees in Spain, after the company’s most notable acquisition: the Banca March broker.
But the podium of purchases in the running world is taken by PIB Group. The company led by Martín Navaz and backed by funds from Apax and Carlyle have carried out eight operations in 2024, with Segurnou, an agreed company of Willis Towers Watson (WTW), being the last on the list. Since its arrival in Spain in 2021, it has acquired more than 20 companies, many of which are in the integration phase.
It is followed by Sabseg Group, a brokerage started by Ramón Badía, founder of Banasegur, and backed by the Miura Partners fund. Last year it completed five purchases plus one in Portugal, with Arrenta (specializing in non-payment of rent) being the most relevant.
Third place is completed by Alkora, a broker 100% owned by the French group Assurances Verspieren, which bought three new brokerages and merged another.
What to expect from 2025
What these companies agree on is that 2025 will be a year with an equal or higher pace at the M&A level. In the case of PIB Group, its CEO in the Iberia region, Martín Navaz, confirmed to this newspaper his intention to make the leap to Portugal in addition to strengthening other areas outside Catalonia (where he has 50% of the business), such as Andalusia. and the Levant. Alkora plans to carry out two other operations with a commission volume of more than 4 million euros, focusing on the Valencian Community and Galicia.
Sabseg is another of those that hopes to confirm three pending incorporations of the DGS and another three new firms in January. Furthermore, the broker’s intention is to close the year with 800 million euros in intermediated premiums, approaching its goal of 1,000 million in 2028.
Grupo Concentra expects to close three operations in both Spain and Portugal and begin its expansion into new territories. Finally, both Howden and RibéSalat are not closed to the market, although at the moment they do not detail their purchase objectives in the short term.
#Insurance #brokers #shopping #operations
