Transaction increases HUB’s liquidity to fuel acquisitions and strategic initiatives that drive organic growth
Hub International Limited (HUB), a leading global insurance brokerage, announced the recent completion of a $6.9 billion debt raise to refinance the company’s $6.4 billion term loan debt that was coming due in 2025, extending the maturity of the new debt to 2030. In addition, HUB’s banking group demonstrated its confidence in the company by raising its revolving credit facilities by more than $200 million to increase capacity for additional acquisitions while fueling investments in strategic initiatives that drive organic growth.
“The transaction demonstrates tremendous market confidence in HUB as a leader in the insurance brokerage industry and greatly enhances our liquidity profile,” said Marc Cohen, President and CEO, HUB International. “It’s an affirmation of our ability to deliver a reliably strong ROI for the firms that we acquire and acknowledges the strength of our investments in initiatives and boundaryless resources for our advisors that fuels our organic growth.”
HUB’s Chief Financial Officer, Joe Hyde added, “We believe that today’s announcement represents the largest high yield bond offering in the financial services space since the financial crisis, as well as the largest leveraged finance transaction for an insurance broker that has ever been recorded*.”
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The $6.9 billion issuance was split between $4.75 billion of a new first lien term loan B and $2.175 billion of new senior secured notes and were offered to qualified institutional buyers. The introduction of senior secured notes into HUB’s capital structure allows the company to capitalize on the attractive value proposition compared to a term loan-only solution, generating meaningful interest expense savings on a relative basis. Further, HUB is pleased to share that Moody’s Investors Service recently upgraded its corporate family rating to “positive” from “stable” based on the company’s steady growth in revenue and strong EBITDA margin.
In 2022, HUB closed 68 acquisition deals and has publicly announced 22 deals in 2023. HUB is focused on acquiring firms whose leadership, sales cultures, and proven history of organic growth indicates they are receptive to taking advantage of the boundaryless resources and industry specialization HUB has invested in to help them outperform on top-and-bottom-line growth. Most recently, HUB announced significant acquisitions including Horan Health and its 120+ strong team, Dwight Andrus Insurance and its more than 130-member team, and Squaremouth digital insurance travel marketplace.
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Equally important is the use of this liquidity to build out resources to drive organic growth which fuels HUB’s industry and product specialization, digital solutions, brand marketing, employee benefit and human resources services, retirement and private wealth offering, MGA/wholesale capabilities, and complex risk and international solutions.
The debt financing transaction follows HUB’s recent announcement of a minority investment agreement with Leonard Green & Partners, which recognized HUB’s valuation and fivefold growth over the last 10 years achieving a total enterprise valuation of $23 billion. HUB expressed its intention to explore the opportunity to bring on additional minority investors in the coming months.
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