Expansion-hungry insurance group Ardonagh has bought leading personal lines broker Swinton for £165m. This acquisition adds more than a million customers, 1.6 million policies, 1550 employees and annual revenue of around £170m to Ardonagh’s burgeoning empire.
It also further extends Ardonagh’s considerable reach in motorcycling. The group already owns the UK’s top-dog specialist motorcycle broker Carole Nash. And its Autonet on-line subsidiary launched into the same market last year with Mackenzie Hodgson Insurance, fronted by former race stars Niall Mackenzie and Neil Hodgson and supposedly selling “insurance by bikers, for bikers”. Swinton personal lines cover ranges from general household to include cars and quite a lot of motorcycles – the latter marketed through Swinton Bikes branding.
Some consolidation of their respective brand strategies and bike books is inevitable. Ardonagh chief executive David Ross has committed to keeping the Swinton brand but said it would be “unrecognisable from the company that it is today once the integration process was complete”. However, he remained vague about how it would be aligned with other Ardonagh personal lines operations, only noting that Swinton’s retention didn’t mean killing off brands such as Carole Nash and Autonet. “It would make literally no sense to take Carole Nash and change it into Swinton,” Ross remarked. “But there’s nothing wrong with having Carole Nash become part of the Swinton group.”