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25 April 20216 minute read

DLA Piper advises Mitsui Sumitomo and MS Amlin in acquisition of International Transportation Marine Office

DLA Piper represented Tokyo-based Mitsui Sumitomo and its UK-based subsidiary MS Amlin in an agreement by MS Amlin to acquire International Transportation and Marine Office, LLC (ITMO), a US managing general agency (MGA) focused on offering its clients marine, trucking and other specialty lines of insurance coverage, including through Lloyd’s of London syndicates.

The acquisition builds on MS Amlin’s core portfolio and balances its catastrophe exposure by investing in the high-growth US specialty MGA market. By targeting mid-size, strongly performing niche MGAs underwritten by capacity from highly rated carriers, MS Amlin will provide its clients with a broader suite of products while deepening distribution links in a key region.

“It was a pleasure to work with the MSI and MS Amlin group again and to support them on this successful US acquisition. We are seeing a number of similar opportunities and transactions in the market with some significant interest from both strategic and private equity groups. MSI and MS Amlin are able to distinguish themselves in a number of ways to successfully execute in this competitive landscape, and we are very happy to have played a role helping them get there on this transaction,” said PK Paran, global co-chair of the firm’s Insurance sector, who co-led the DLA Piper team from New York along with Gabriel Gershowitz. Paran and Gershowitz worked closely with and were supported by Rube Uthayakumar in New York and Masahiko Ishida, the head of the firm’s Corporate practice in Japan.

“It was great to be able to bring to bear our extensive experience handling sophisticated insurance M&A transactions and a strong, multi-jurisdictional and multidisciplinary team to assist Mitsui Sumitomo and MS Amlin in this acquisition, which complements MS Amlin’s existing portfolio and provides it with crucial access to the US insurance market,” said Gabriel Gershowitz.

The DLA team was further assisted by Christine Korper (Chicago) and Kaila Solomon (New York), as well as a multidisciplinary team from across the firm, including partners Gerald Rokoff, Paolo Morante (both of New York), Ignacio Sanchez, Julia Kovacs (both of Washington, DC), Victoria Lee and Nathaniel McKitterick (both of Silicon Valley); of counsel Nicole Zayac (San Francisco), Nicholas Klein, Nia Brown (both of Washington, DC) and James Rusert (Atlanta); and associates Kurtis Weaver (Boston), James Duchesne (Washington, DC), Julie Franki (Atlanta) and Mary Claire Blythe (Baltimore). Masahiko Ishida, head of the firm’s Corporate practice in Japan, served as a local liaison to Mitsui Sumitomo. 

With more than 400 dedicated lawyers serving the insurance industry globally, DLA Piper helps clients execute complex cross-border transactions seamlessly while supporting clients across all stages of development. The firm has been rated number one in global M&A volume for 11 consecutive years, according to Mergermarket.

DLA Piper’s Insurance sector offers a full range of insurance services, including transactional, regulatory, commercial dispute resolution, claims, competition, restructuring and emergency response. The firm represents both startups and established multinational life and non-life (re)insurers, Lloyd’s entities, intermediaries, banks, capital providers (including hedge funds, private equity funds and venture capital funds), regulators and other insurance industry participants.

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