Axa sells off Bluefin brokerage

Axa has sold its insurance brokerage Bluefin in a GBP295 million deal that marks its latest withdrawal from the British market.

The French group has owned Bluefin for about a decade but struggled to sustain profitable growth, and is selling the firm to rival brokerage Marsh.

The sale marks Axa’s latest step back from Britain and other European countries as it looks to expand in faster-growing regions. Bluefin turned over GBP122 million last year by selling personal and business insurance from various providers across the UK. It posted a pre-tax profit of GBP1.2 million in that year, compared to a GBP7.2 million loss in the prior one, after a series of acquisitions to improve its reach.

Axa sold off some of Bluefin’s financial planning business in 2013 but maintained that it was committed to insurance broking.