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After a one-year lull, Acordia Inc.--the world's seventh-largest insurance brokerage--is back snatching up other companies at a fast clip.
Since July, Acordia has acquired two firms in Ohio, two in California, and one in Nevada. It also entered a partnership with New York-based KSH Inc., which brokers property and casualty insurance to several industries.
"Part of the strategy is market share. In a sales organization like ours, you have to keep growing," said Acordia CEO Frank C. Witthun, who last year led Acordia executives in a $320 million buyout from parent company Anthem Inc., the locally based Blue Cross & Blue Shield giant. The purchase closed in August 1997.
The separation temporarily forced Acordia off the acquisition trail, as managers negotiated the buyout agreement with Anthem and restructured the company, which has 3,000 employees in 82 offices in 25 states.
Acordia had revenue of $311 million in 1997 from its commissions. Out of that, it had income of $29 million. And now the firm--whose services include risk-management consulting, employee benefits services and managed care administration--plans to buy up companies with combined revenues of $30 million yearly, into the foreseeable future.
In the insurance brokerage industry, long accustomed to mergers and acquisitions,...