Martello Underwriting Limited holding company said it is selling its insurance agency business to Royal & SunAlliance for ?38.5 million ($73.2 million) in cash. Both firms are based in London.
The firm holds Martello Professional Risks Limited, the specialist professional indemnity insurance agency, which trades as PI Direct, PI Brokerlink, Magian Underwriting and Saturn.
Martello, founded in 1997, is a large provider of professional indemnity insurance in the U.K. The company says it provides insurance for virtually all professions and with approximately 30,000 policies.
Martello and the trading operations will initially continue to operate under their existing names, Michael Wood will remain chief executive, and the management team will remain in place, the company said.
R&SA is already a major capacity provider to Martello and following the change of ownership, R&SA said it will in due course expand its commitment and become the sole capacity provider across all of Martello's lines of business.
Mr. Wood, said company plans for development have included broadening our product range and providing certainty in our capacity base.
"We already have a significant connection to R&SA and this deal provides not only uniformity and continuity of underwriting capacity, but the opportunity to bring new products to brokers and customers which will help us in our next phase of development."
Andrew Wallas, Martello chairman, said that the firm was approached by a number of potential buyers over the last year or so and was "particularly concerned that any choice we made for the future of the business be in the best interests of our staff and our clients."
He said the transaction comes with a "known cultural fit" between the companies.
At Royal & SunAlliance, Bridget McIntyre, UK Chief Executive, said: "This transaction offers an ideal opportunity for R&SA to strengthen its position in the professional indemnity market" and "creates an attractive platform from which to drive profitable growth."
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