Soft market no obstacle for Steadfast growth

Steadfast’s sights remain firmly set on growth, with the broking network announcing four new acquisitions.

The firm released its half-year financial results on Monday, with fees and commissions up almost 50% year-on-year.

It also announced it would acquire two of QBE’s underwriting agencies – strata specialist CHU and plant and mobile equipment specialist UAA – as well as the insurer’s Body Corporate Brokers business.

Steadfast is also set to acquire the Australian and New Zealand business of IC Frith.

Steadfast CEO and Managing Director Robert Kelly says: “As the largest broker distributor of UAA and CHU products, Steadfast is the natural acquirer of these businesses.”

“Furthermore, we are the natural acquirer of IC Frith, which was a founding member of the Steadfast Network in 1996.

“Acquiring the QBE agencies along with Calliden’s agencies has created the largest group of underwriting agencies in Australasia and brings tremendous scale and depth to Steadfast Underwriting Agencies.”

To fund the acquisitions, Steadfast is embarking on an equity raising of $300 million.

Overall, Steadfast network brokers wrote $2.1 billion in premium in the first half of this financial year, up 6.1% year-on-year. Although premium rates across the group more than 7%, an 8.6% increase in volume allowed growth to still occur.