The Dust Is Settling

Two weeks, two deals, two opposite directions.

On August 31, Aon agreed to buy USI for $17 billion. On September 14, The Baldwin Group announced it's going private in a $7.7 billion deal backed by Michael Dell's family office. Trevor Baldwin published a letter to stakeholders explaining why. If you run an agency, read the whole thing.

Baldwin didn't go private to buy more agencies. It went private because the public markets wouldn't fund the long game. The letter calls the last decade's playbook “buy at one multiple, trade at a higher one, repeat,” and says merger arbitrage “does not produce an enduring value creation flywheel.” Baldwin's number is six straight years of top-of-industry organic growth. That's what the firm is protecting.

Then there's Howden, which put its Americas headquarters in Miami and has spent the last year recruiting producers instead of buying books. Close to 300 people from one competitor alone, by that competitor's own estimate. Same thesis. The value isn't in the book. It's in the people who built it and the relationships they carry.

There is no doubt that we are all nervous about the impact of AI in our industry. The value of our books, our job security, the people we've hired. I've had that conversation with myself more than once.

But as the dust settles, we are starting to realize the foundation of the business is still the same. One firm paid $17 billion for scale. One walked away from a public listing to keep investing in talent and organic growth. One is hiring advisors one at a time. None of them are betting the relationship goes away. Even Baldwin's letter, which is about as pro-AI as anything written in this industry, says the technology's job is to remove “nearly everything that gets in their way.” The advisor's way. Not the advisor.

The foundation is the same one it was 30 years ago. Pick up the phone. Do what you say you're going to do. Be an advisor. Build relationships. None of the $25 billion that moved this month bought anything else.

Before you buy another AI tool, increase your team's phone time. Then tell me which one is improving your agency more.