A competitor of mine sold last month. You'd never know.
A competitor of mine sold last month. You'd never know.
A competitor I've known for years sold his agency last month. The website still shows the same company name. His team still answers the phone. His clients have no idea anything changed.
But behind the scenes, there's now a private equity firm making decisions about staffing, technology, carrier relationships, and growth targets. He's still running things day-to-day, but the ownership looks completely different.
This is playing out everywhere right now. Quietly. Steadily. And it's reshaping our industry in ways most of our clients, and a lot of our peers, haven't fully picked up on.
I wrote about it for Korsgaden Insights Issue 7. It's called The Quiet Shift, and it's my attempt to make sense of what's actually happening, why it's happening now, and what it means for those of us still running independent shops.
It's not a piece about whether consolidation is good or bad. It's just me laying out what I'm seeing, the numbers behind it, and the questions I think every independent owner should be asking right now, whether or not selling is anywhere on your mind.
I'm already working on the next piece, where I want to get into the real reasons I think more owners are cashing out early and handing their independence over to private equity. Not the clean version that shows up in the press releases. The actual one.
If you've got a perspective, even a half-formed one, I'd love to hear it before I sit down to write.