Opinion: Consolidation crisis?

Clear Group’s Howard Lickens on why the big consolidators may be running out of brokers to buy

For those of you not living in a cave, there’s something of a run on insurance brokers at the M&A department store. As soon as the shelves get re-stocked, greedy buyers queue to fill up their trolleys. It feels like buying toilet roll in Morrisons last March. 

Hardly a day goes by without one or more eminent consolidators announcing the acquisition of yet another well-established independent broker – for some reason “swooping” is commonly used to describe such activity. And, just to declare an