The Scottish broker owned by brothers Chris and Nick hit the big time with its acquisition of Ward Evans and now plans a stock market flotation
Name: Giles Insurance Brokers
Address: 35-47 Bank Street, Irvine, Scotland KA12 OLN
Tel: 01294 274629
Fax: 01294 275222
Website:
www.thebroker.co.uk
Main lines of business: Commercial lines account for 75% to 80% of business, personal lines about 15% to 20% and life about 5%.
Main insurers used: The biggest is Norwich Union. Other key players include Groupama, Zurich Financial Services, Royal&SunAlliance and AXA. It also has relationships with US insurers such as St Paul, ACE, AIG, Chubb and Markel.
Financial statistics: Premium income is about £60m, following the significant acquisition of Ward Evans business in December 2002. Before the acquisition Giles was generating premium income of £6.8m and pre-tax profit of about £430,000. Projections of financial performance following the acquisition put premium income at about £12.5m and profit before tax at about £2m.
Key contacts For brokers and insurers: chief executive Chris Giles.
General inquiries: commercial operations director Robin Grass, chairman Nick Giles or chief operating officer Paul Thomson.
General information Giles operates from 15 UK locations. Head office is in Irvine, North Ayrshire. Other city offices are in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Inverness, Birmingham, Leeds, London and Carlisle. Giles has rural branches in Skye, Oban, Fort William, Ayr, Girvan, Newton Stewart and Dumfries.
It has about 300 staff and expects to expand to about 350 by its financial year-end in August.
What is giles' background?
Brothers Nick and Chris Giles, who run Giles Insurance, inherited insurance from their father. Michael Giles started in the business with Road Transport & General - later to be bought by General Accident - and started his own company in 1967 in the downstairs of the family's terraced house in Irvine, North Ayrshire.
More than three decades later, the company is still headquartered in the same place, although its head office has now grown to occupy a row of ex-terraced homes, numbers 35 to 47 in Bank Street, Irvine.
Getting the best reaction from hotels and pubs, Giles made this a speciality and the now has 3,000 privately owned establishments on its books, its biggest single scheme.
The business has grown through about 18 acquisitions with the largest, in which it bought the book of business from Ward Evans in December, giving a huge push to the momentum of Giles' push southwards.
Chris Giles said the focus was now directed at continuing its expansion southwards.
"We've got enough specialist areas to start opening new offices. In the next two years, we'll open in key cities like Manchester, Bristol, we'll look at Newcastle and possibly East Anglia with Norwich or Ipswich. We've got to look at the south coast, too - Portsmouth and Bournemouth are big insurance locations. We've targeted Aberdeen as the last big city location we want to open. We'd rather open from scratch in these locations than bolt something to an acquisition.
From there, his target is to launch onto the stock market. "We think the next two and a half years is a window of opportunity to acquire other brokers. At that point, if we want to raise money, we would probably go to the stock market.
Did you know?
Audrey Giles, wife of chief executive Chris, is a proficient artist who paints particularly good landscapes.
She was delighted recently when she sold her first picture - a view of Turnberry Hotel - for £6,500.
The family firm arranges cover on her paintings. Chris Giles said: "We'll have to raise the insurance valuations on her work now."
