Despite global investment headwinds, all indications so far suggest that Irish merger and acquisition activity has been particularly resilient this year. While some big-ticket transactions have grabbed most of the headlines, a couple of interesting but lower-profile deals in recent weeks have caught the eye.
Anyone who thought the rapid consolidation of Ireland’s insurance brokerage industry that began a few years ago might be running out of steam may have been given pause for thought last Thursday with the announcement that Arachas has agreed to acquire Limerick-based Gerry O’Mahony Insurances for an undisclosed sum. Marking the group’s third acquisition of the year, the deal is seen as an important step for Arachas — one of the most active on the brokerage acquisition trail in the Republic since itself being snapped up by Ardonagh in 2020 — as it looks to consolidate its position in the midwest region.
Then on Monday came the announcement that Gallivan Financial, the Kerry-based wealth management firm, has agreed to snap up Limerick-based financial advisory company FJ Hanly & Associates. Interestingly, the Killarney firm is majority-owned by the Gallivan family, who sold their insurance brokerage Gallivan Murphy in 2022 to a private equity-backed US insurance broking group, called Assured Partners, for about €100 million.
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Gallivan Financial was not part of that transaction and is now plotting a path for significant growth. Following the deal for FJ Hanly, Gallivan will have assets of some €400 million under management and has plans to reach €1 billion over the next 18 months.
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With the economy buoyant and the prospect of more interest rate cuts on the horizon, it’s perhaps no surprise that the Irish M&A market is poised for another bumper year. Although the volume of transactions in the second quarter of the year was down 11 per cent on the same period last year, according to analysis from Davy Stockbrokers, some 400 deals are expected in 2024. This “compares very favourably with historic levels, as the market looks to have now settled at a structurally higher level of mergers and acquisitions activity”, Davy analysts said in a report last month.
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