Worldwide Facilities to Acquire Sullivan Group

Two leading Los Angeles-based national wholesale insurance businesses will be joining forces as Worldwide Facilities has agreed to acquire The Sullivan Group.

Worldwide Facilities plans to acquire all of the outstanding capital stock of Sullivan. No other financial details were disclosed. The parties hope to close the deal within 30 days.

The deal includes most affiliates of the privately-owned The Sullivan Group:

• Sullivan Brokers, a wholesale only specialty insurance brokerage firm serving retail producers with management liability, professional and E&O liability, healthcare liability and various other casualty lines.
• G.J. Sullivan Co. Excess & Surplus Lines Brokers, a wholesaler with programs that include directors & officers, tow trucks, trucking, and restaurants.
• Gerald J. Sullivan & Associates of Oregon, a wholesale producer that concentrates on business from the Pacific Northwest, including Alaska, with particular expertise in the property field.
• Kevin Davis Insurance Services (KDIS), a leading wholesale broker to the community association industry.

However, another affiliate, the G.J. Sullivan Co. Reinsurance, a reinsurance intermediary, is not part of the sale.

The Sullivan name will continue to be used by G.J. Sullivan, Excess & Surplus Lines Brokers, and Kevin Davis will also continue to operate in its own name.

The deal marks the second major acquisition by Worldwide Facilities in the past week. Last week it announced it had acquired Tennant Risk Services Insurance Agency, a Connecticut based wholesale insurance broker and underwriting manager.

Gerald J. (Jerry) Sullivan, chairman of Gerald J. Sullivan & Associates, the focus company for all members of The Sullivan Group, will become a non-executive director and assume a consulting role with Worldwide Facilities after the closing. In addition to serving in a strategic consulting role with Worldwide Facilities, Sullivan will continue to run the reinsurance affiliate.

Sullivan’s insurance career spans 35 years in various aspects of the business including regulatory, investment, company, claims, program manager, reinsurance and wholesale intermediary. He worked with and expanded a family reinsurance business and a property/casualty business known for its medical professional liability program before establishing The Sullivan Group in 1981. Along with various partners, over the years he launched a number of new companies and developed new insurance products such as structured settlements.

Hank Haldeman, executive vice president and director of The Sullivan Group, which he joined in 1997, will join Worldwide Facilities with responsibility for underwriting operations. He will also participate in strategic development, growth and acquisition strategies and organizational integration. Prior to joining The Sullivan Group, Haldeman worked with wholesale brokerages Johnson & Higgins and Stewart Smith.

Asked why selling now makes sense, Sullivan said he and Haldeman have been working on this for some time “with a focus on maintaining as much ongoing continuity for both the businesses as well as for our staff as well as our markets and clients.”

The staff he is talking about has been critical. “What’s been our key to success? That’s easy – outstanding staff. Without that we’d never have gotten anywhere,” he told Insurance Journal.

He said he expects there will continue to be consolidation in the wholesale segment of the business. “But at the same time, new shops will open as entrepreneurs will always rise up and set up new operations – it’s been ever thus in our business,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan said the two organizations’ products are complementary and their cultures are “very compatible,” making it “personally satisfying to see the successful perpetuation of the business through a company as respected as Worldwide.”

“The opportunity to marry respective products and distribution platforms leverages our position in the marketplace within an independent, wholesale-dedicated environment, led by individuals that share our vision, ethics and culture,” commented Haldeman.

Worldwide Facilities sees the deal strengthening its offerings to retail brokers and its industry relationships.

“We are pleased that Jerry Sullivan, a widely-respected industry veteran and insurance innovator, will be connected to our company in a consulting role focused on leadership and product development. His experience, wisdom and significant industry relationships will be a great asset for Worldwide Facilities. We are also extremely pleased and excited to be partnering with Hank Haldeman and the entire Sullivan team. Their exclusive national underwriting programs, including KDIS, MGA offerings and brokerage operations further strengthen and geographically diversify our value proposition to our retailer customers,” said Davis Moore, CEO of Worldwide Facilities, in prepared remarks.

Worldwide Facilities is a national wholesale insurance broker and managing general agent that has been in business since 1970. It has branch offices in major metropolitan areas including Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Phoenix, Orlando, Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Dallas, Houston and Seattle.

In the past six months it has opened new offices and added new employees in several cities including Boston and Palm Springs and in North Carolina (Morehead City). It has also announced several new programs.

Worldwide Facilities has expanded in part through acquisitions, including Sloan Mason and Trinity Underwriting Managers in 2016 and just last week, Tennant Risk Services.

The firm’s gross written premium reached $645 million in 2016, up from $533 million in 2015.

In 2015, Worldwide Facilities received an investment from Lovell Minnick Partners, while remaining majority-owned by its employees.

In 2016, Worldwide Facilities added John Addeo, the founder of three national insurance brokerage companies, to its board of directors to advise management on expansion. Addeo has helped launch Confie Seguros, USI Insurance Services Corp. and Alliant Insurance Services Inc.