Date set for Marsh-JLT completion after final regulatory approvals

Marsh owner Marsh & McLennan Companies has announced that it has now received all regulatory permissions to complete the acquisition of JLT.

With approval from the European Commission today MMC said in a statement that “all regulatory and competition authority approvals required to close the transaction have now been satisfied.”

A hearing at the UK High Court has been set for next Friday, 29 March. Subject to the court’s approval, the transaction is expected to close on 1 April.

JLT shareholders gave almost unanimous 99.9% approval to the deal, which looks set to shake up broker M&A, in November last year.

Funding

Marsh this week announced the terms of two bonds it is offering worth €1.1bn to finance the deal. The firm had already issued $5bn in senior notes in January to fund the acquisition, and this week issued another $250m under the same terms as one of those bonds.

Since the announcement in September that a deal had been reached for Marsh to acquire JLT for $5.6bn, the two firms have been preparing for the integration process.

Marsh began combining the two brokers’ specialty businesses in November and senior figures have already moved between the firms.