PIB Group announces 2019 Full Year Results

<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18px;">July 9, 2020</span>

PIB Group Limited (‘PIB’ or the ‘Group’) has released its financial results for the year ended 31 December 2019 with the filing of its statutory accounts.

GROUP FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

  • Revenue of £123.3m, an increase of 15% on 2018
  • Adjusted EBITDA1 of £26.7m, an increase of 50% on 2018
  • Adjusted EBITDA of £31.2m on a run-rate2 basis
  • Gross Written Premiums of £986m
  • Organic revenue growth of 8%

BUSINESS HIGHLIGHTS

2019 was another year of significant growth and investment with PIB making strong progress again in its ambition to be one of the UK’s leading diversified and specialist insurance intermediaries.

  • Established as a greenfield consolidator, PIB continued with its proven track record of acquiring businesses in niche and specialist markets. Acquisitions included:
  • Optis Insurances Limited, a Managing General Agent servicing the Irish SME sector with a particular focus on the construction, retail and hospitality sectors.
  • The COBRA group of companies, a network-centric proposition which expanded PIB’s capabilities with the addition of COBRA Network.
  • Sue Smith Limited, a health and safety consultancy focused on the motor trade sector.
  • CMR Insurance Services Limited, a credit insurance specialist.
  • Cooper Solutions Limited, a provider of online solutions for the retail automotive industry including daily rate insurance for customer courtesy, demonstration and rental car loans.
  • Significant progress with PIB’s program of integrating acquired businesses into a secure and scalable core infrastructure, which supports common systems and centralised functions.

PIB’s divisions continued to evolve during the year and into 2020:

  • Specialty – encompasses the Group’s account executive led commercial advisory business. It was strengthened with the addition of Steve Redgwell as CEO in January 2020, and looking ahead, it will operate as PIB Insurance Brokers from October 2020, simplifying the structure of its specialist businesses, strengthening the brand and reinforcing how colleagues place collaboration at the heart of everything they do. The Specialty division accounts for 49.4% of Group revenues.
  • Schemes & Affinities – sells products on a non-advised basis and written through delegated authorities. It successfully migrated onto a digital and web-enabled platform facilitating increased scalability and providing a platform for significant revenue growth. The Schemes & Affinities division accounts for 15.0% of Group revenues.
  • PIB Employee Benefits – delivers innovative products and services across the whole spectrum of financial and non-financial rewards for businesses and its employees. In 2019, the business continued its strong organic growth, completed the integration of i2 Healthcare and finalised a partnership with BenefitHub that offers complementary employee discounts and deals directly through a white labelled intranet portal. The Employee Benefits division accounts for 2.7% of Group revenues.
  • MGA – now known as ‘Q Underwriting’ following its successful launch to unite PIB’s specialist MGA businesses under a new parent brand. This also included the move of all business onto one common TOBA, the adoption of a consistent and joined up approach to sales and marketing, and migration to a common underwriting platform. The MGA division accounts for 14.0% of Group revenues.
  • London Market – specialises in the wholesale placement of UK and Irish commercial risks to both Lloyds and non-Lloyds London Market insurers, and was strengthened with the addition of COBRA London Markets as well as a number of senior hires into its motor team. The London Market division accounts for 17.1% of Group revenues.
  • Network – established though the acquisition of COBRA Network and under new leadership, the division made a great start in refreshing its approach and proposition, adding both new network members and carriers to its panel of supporting insurers. The Network division accounts for 1.4% of Group revenues.
  • Group Central – comprises the Group’s support services (HR, finance, acquisitions, integration, compliance, legal, IT and operations). The investment in people and infrastructure has created a team, platform and capability to operate and manage a business far larger than exists currently, and one that can continue to operate as an independent Group for many years to come. The Group Central division accounts for 0.4% of Group revenues.

Chief Financial Officer Ryan Brown commented:

“PIB Group continues to go from strength to strength, which is testament to the hard work and dedication of all our people.  While our acquisition strategy continues to garner most of the headlines, our cross-group collaboration and sustained market beating organic growth is facilitated by ongoing investment in our systems, processes and infrastructure, as well as our programmatic approach to the integration of acquired businesses, and our ability to attract market leading teams and individuals.

As we enter our 5th year in existence, we are starting to demonstrate that we have carved ourselves a unique position in the market.  One that combines the focus on client, service and specialist product expertise of niche brokers, with the scale and diversified capabilities of larger brokers, thereby offering a credible and attractive alternative proposition to insurers and clients.  This uniqueness will only increase as we embark on the considered internationalisation of the Group over the coming months and years.”

At the mid-way point of 2020, PIB has kept up the momentum with its ambitious growth plans. It has already made five acquisitions, including its first international business and the expansion of its capabilities into the reinsurance markets. Seeing how those investments start to flourish and bear fruit as they embed into the Group over the coming months and find ways to collaborate with their peers is particularly exciting.

Ryan Brown continued:

“What is exciting is that the full impact of the investments we have made to date are yet to be seen in the Group’s financial results.  Combining these with the strong pipeline of exclusive acquisitions in due diligence will lead to a step change in both our revenues and our profit margins by the end of the year.

At a time of significant domestic and international uncertainty, the strength of our infrastructure and platforms, along with the exceptional nature of our people, will ensure that we are able to support our clients, adapt to changing market dynamics and remain resilient this year and into the future.”

 

Notes

  1. ‘Adjusted EBITDA’ is the Group’s preferred performance measure whereby one-off, discretionary costs borne from PIB’s transformation are removed. These discretionary costs comprise acquisition and restructuring costs, IT and infrastructure integration costs and costs associated with business line closure and alignment.
  2. The ‘run-rate’ includes 12 months’ pro forma effect of acquisitions completed during 2019 but excludes expected synergies.