Lloyd & Whyte buys Naturesave Policies

The broker was founded 28-years ago and has a registered charity, The Naturesave Trust, which was set up in 1995.

Since then, it has donated more than £1m to the Trust. The donations are used to primarily to fund grants for environmental projects.

Insurance Age interviewed founder and CEO Matthew Criddle in July last year. At that time the business employed 12 people and had GWP of £3m. It covered homes, businesses, charities and offered professional indemnity, cyber, directors and officers, environmental impairment liability policies.

Lloyd & Whyte, part of the Benefact Group, recently reported a 22.2% increase in turnover for 2021 as acquisitions boosted the total to £23.4m, a Companies House document showed.

M&A

Naturesave is the latest deal for Lloyd & Whyte which added Business Choice Direct Insurance Services and Stride to its roster in 2020.

In turn in 2021 BCD bought commercial insurance specialist broker Direct Corporate Risks from what is now Aventum for £4.35m. And Stride bought managing general agent MI Commercial Risks – formerly known as R&Q Commercial Risk Services – which places commercial, property and liability business into the London Market, for £3.04m.

Across the group there were a further five purchases of brokers or books of business in 2021 including 100% of the share capital of Exeter based commercial broker Northcott Beaton for £2.1m.

Advice

The Naturesave deal was advised by Foot Antsey.

Criddle commented: “Foot Anstey managed the legal side of the sale of our business. They provided a task related price to do so even though they incurred slightly more hours on the work involved. They were helpful, clear and supportive to personal circumstances.”

The Foot Anstey team was led by associate James Crotty.

He said: “It was a pleasure to advise the shareholders on their sale to Lloyd & Whyte. We were able to achieve a successful result that worked for all parties involved. It was fascinating to work closely with a company with such fantastic green credentials in line with the founder’s vision.”

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