ERSM, a brokerage specialized in companies and the automotive industry controlled by the Soler and Aparicio families, has completed the purchase of 45% of Corredoria d'Assegurances Pyrénées, an insurance subsidiary of Andorran department stores. Salvador Vilallonga, general director of the Catalan brokerage, explains that the company already had a significant presence in Andorra, since until January last year the main shareholder was the Crèdit Andorrà group, to which the Risk group (the investment company of the shareholders relatives) bought their share.
"We want to grow in the Iberian Peninsula, and for us it is both Andorra and Portugal," says Vilallonga. In a sector, that of insurance intermediation, in which venture capital firms have landed with force, ERSM has given entry into its shareholding to the Swedish group Söderberg
ERSM has annual revenues of 27.1 million and a staff of 250 people. The firm brokered premiums of 215 million euros last year, and this year it expects to grow by 10%, above the sector. The ERSM group is made up of the parent company and 25 subsidiary and investee companies located throughout Spain. “We buy stakes, sometimes minority ones, so that the local team can be maintained, and we integrate them into our group, offering them common marketing, human resources, training, claims management services, or whatever they need,” says Vilallonga. The group's parent company has a 10% margin that it expects to raise to 15%. The firm is the second independent brokerage in Spain by volume of income.
Pyrénées is the third company this year to acquire ERSM, which in March acquired the underwriting agencies Epsom, also specializing in mobility, and Credicand, surety insurance.
"We are negotiating other acquisitions," says Vilallonga. The group's goal is to accelerate growth through purchases in 2023 and 2024 with the aim of investing up to 40 million euros and entering some 20 brokerages. “It is a high ambition, true. But with the resources that our own business generates and the support of our shareholders, perfectly feasible”, he assures.
