6. Benfield Group

Fee and commission income (2002): £284.5m

Pre-tax profit (2002): £10.4m

Address:
55 Bishopsgate,
London
EC2N 3BD

Tel: 020 7578 7000

Fax: 020 7578 7001

E-mail: enquiries@ benfieldgroup.com

Website: www.benfieldgroup. Com

Year established: 1974

History: Today, Benfield works with customers in over 100 countries, through a network of over 30 offices and over 1,800 reinsurance and insurance professionals worldwide. The company has evolved through organic growth and strategic acquisition.

Key milestones:

1973 Establishment of Benfield, Lovick & Rees (BLR) and established as a Lloyd's broker

1974 Greig Fester formed as a result of merger between Fester Fothergill and Hartung (established 1874) and WT Greig (established 1921)

1988 A team including the late Matthew Harding, John Coleman and Grahame Chilton lead a management buy-out of Benfield, Lovick & Rees to form the Benfield Group

1995 The Benfield Group acquires Lloyd's reinsurance broker Ellinger Heath Western, a specialist in North American and UK non-marine treaty insurance to create Benfield Ellinger Limited

2002 Benfield Ellinger merges with Greig Fester to form Benfield Greig Group. The merger represented a major step in the company's expansion, providing Benfield with an international office network to complement its existing operations which were primarily UK-focused.

2001 Benfield Greig merges with EW Blanch (established in 1957) to form Benfield Group, the world's leading reinsurance intermediary. The merger significantly increased the company's presence in the US, resulting in the company becoming a strong and competitive participant in the world's largest reinsurance market.

2003 Creation of a single brand identity, represented by the name Benfield.

Major shareholders: 100% subsidiary of Benfield Group Limited

Main lines of business: Reinsurance

Number of UK employees (average 2002): 800

Chief officer: Grahame Chilton, chief executive

Biography: Chilton joined Benfield in 1982 from CT Bowring, which was then a subsidiary of Marsh Inc. Over the years, he has traded in non-marine, marine and aviation reinsurance and direct retrocession business. He has been a director since 1986 and was part of the management team that led the buy-out of Benfield in 1988.

Since his appointment as group chief executive in 1996, Benfield has expanded through a combination of organic growth and a number of strategic transactions, including the acquisitions of Greig Fester Group Ltd, Bates Turner Intermediaries LLC and EW Blanch Holdings Inc. During this time, revenue has increased from £50m to £300m.