Aon takes M&A drive niche-hunting, need not over-bid for broker teams

Global re/insurance broker  Aon may be honing its mergers and acquisitions (M&A) hunt, seeking niche competencies to hit client demand more than joining ongoing bidding wars for broker talent, officials suggested Friday (February 4, 2022).

"We start from client needs and then we build the M&A pipeline around the highest growth and highest margin opportunities," chief financial officer Christa Davies (pictured) said during the Q4 earnings call.

That has Aon building relationships with potential targets well before sides think of merger synergies, she said. In best case scenarios, Aon places buyout proposals against an empty bidder field.

Davies cited cyber, intellectual property and unspecified "analytical intensive" fields as top current areas of interest.

"We are really thrilled to be bringing that capability into Aon and we expect to be doing more of that in 2022," Davies said.

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