Gallagher aims for a £50m turnover target

The firm, which moved from East Parade to City Exchange following its merger with Oxygen Insurance Brokers last year, predicted the office, which has a £25m turnover, would reach £50m in the next three years.

Leeds, led by director David Fryer, is now the group’s second largest operation in the UK after the Oxygen deal added 20 staff to its team.

Gallagher Heath has 42 staff in the city, covering insurance broking, claims management, risk managers and employee benefits.

Dave Partington, the firm’s head of UK retail offices, said: “Leeds, in the insurance sector particularly, is a booming city. It’s a city that more and more insurance companies are moving into, which gives us a lot of opportunities to work with local businesses.”

In addition to inheriting the staff at Oxygen, the firm is planning to hire more new staff. “The fact we have now got some critical mass in Leeds, gives us a fantastic story to tell people in the insurance market in Leeds and we’ve actually got people knocking on our door now,” said Mr Partington. “We are also in dialogue with three or four other people now because suddenly we are an exciting news story that everyone wants to be a part of.”

He added: “One of the advantages of a place like Leeds is that because you’ve got such a strong insurance centre, there is a lot of high quality talent in terms of technical insurance talent that we can bring in. One of the problems we have if we operate in, say, a place like Norwich is where do you go and get your insurance talent from? You have to bring it in.”

Mr Partington said Gallagher Heath’s strategy was to “very aggressively” win new clients. “We think the Gallagher proposition is incredibly strong,” he said. “We’ve got a base where we’re able to fulfil everything locally. We’ve also got all the expertise of Gallaghers that exists in London as well.

“The plan really is to outgrow this office. There is more than enough business in Leeds and Yorkshire to do that. We are not the largest but we’d very much like to be.”

Gallagher Heath has a smaller operation in Sheffield, which employs 10 staff, but is another area for the company’s growth.

It also has a Wakefield office, which has a £12m turnover and is a base for Gallagher Heath Insurance Services, the group’s schemes and affinities business, employs 270 staff.

Mr Partington said: “I’m a great believer in good old-fashioned organic growth. I genuinely believe there is a huge opportunity to do the majority of that growth by providing a great service to our clients and going out and growing that client base and we need more people to do that.”

He added that the company would also look to acquire new businesses. “If we could find the right businesses to buy, we would love to, but it’s got to be the right cultural fit,” he said. “We’ve got to either love that business or love the leadership of that business.”

Gallagher Heath was formed last year following the acquisition of insurance adviser and broker Heath Lambert by Arthur J Gallagher & Co for an estimated £97m.

Tom Gallagher, chairman of Arthur J. Gallagher International, which is based in Chicago, said: “The acquisition of Heath last year was the first time we had a retail presence in the UK. When we look around the UK, there are key centres for us to continue expanding our business. The economy is soft but you’ve got a great business economy and we want to tap into that.”

Mr Partington said the market in which it operated was tough but the firm benefited from the success of a number of its clients.

“The economic environment has a direct effect on us,” he said. “As our clients succeed and fail, we roll with the punches. In terms of the insurance market, prices are really competitive and that’s great for our clients.”

He added: “It’s a tough industry to operate in but so is every industry at the moment and we’ve got some phenomenal success stories with our clients where we’ve seen them grow enormously and that counteracts some clients who encounter harder times.”

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