EQT to Acquire McGill and Partners at $2 Billion as Warburg Pincus Exits

Global investment organization EQT has agreed to acquire a majority stake in London-based specialty insurance and reinsurance broker McGill and Partners from Warburg Pincus for $2 billion, handing the private equity manager control of a seven-year-old brokerage that has grown to more than $250 million in annual revenue.

Warburg Pincus will sell its equity stake in full, while founder and Chief Executive Steve McGill, Chairman John Lloyd, management and other employees will reinvest alongside EQT and remain meaningful shareholders. McGill will continue to lead the company and Lloyd will remain actively involved, according to the companies’ Sept. 4 announcement.

The transaction gives EQT exposure to a specialty brokerage that has expanded largely through organic growth and talent recruitment rather than an acquisition-led roll-up. It also delivers an exit for Warburg Pincus after the firm backed McGill and Partners at its creation in May 2019 and subsequently transferred the investment into a $2.2 billion continuation fund.

EQT Targets Organic Growth, Technology and U.S. Expansion

EQT X, the manager’s flagship private equity fund, will make the investment. The buyer plans to support further international expansion through specialist recruitment, investment in technology and data capabilities, and additional digital products.

The official EQT transaction announcement says the company will retain its independent operating model and employee-ownership culture following the transaction.

McGill and Partners was founded in May 2019 by Steve McGill alongside John Lloyd, Stephen Cross and Karl Hennessy with cornerstone backing from Warburg Pincus. The business has since grown to more than 600 employees across seven countries and serves more than 1,000 insurance and reinsurance clients. Revenue now exceeds $250 million.

The broker is headquartered in London and operates in Bermuda, the U.S., Ireland, Australia, Switzerland and Sweden.

EQT has identified the U.S. and broader international market as areas for further expansion. Miriam Tawil, a partner at EQT Private Equity, said the investment would support growth of McGill’s U.S. and international client portfolio while strengthening connections to the Lloyd’s and London insurance market.

The transaction adds to EQT’s recent deployment activity. PE NEWSWIRE previously reported on the manager’s acquisition of Corza Biosurgery in a healthcare carve-out, another investment from EQT’s private equity platform.

McGill’s Earnings Growth Supports $2 Billion Valuation

McGill’s growth since its launch helps explain the scale of the transaction.

The Financial Times reported that the brokerage is expected to generate approximately $100 million of EBITDA in 2026, compared with about $60 million in 2025. At the $2 billion transaction value, that implies a valuation of roughly 20 times projected 2026 EBITDA.

That multiple places significant weight on continued earnings growth.

Unlike many insurance brokerage platforms built through serial acquisitions, McGill has emphasized recruiting specialist teams and building its client base organically. The approach can reduce acquisition-integration risk, but it makes the firm’s ability to attract and retain high-performing brokers particularly important to the investment case.

EQT intends to reinforce that model rather than replace it. Every McGill employee already has an economic interest in the business, and EQT has committed to establishing a new equity participation plan that will give employees an opportunity to share directly in future growth. Part of the plan will be reserved for expanding the company’s talent base.

The ownership structure aligns with a central feature of specialty insurance brokerage: much of the enterprise value resides in client relationships, specialist knowledge and individual producers rather than physical assets.

Warburg Pincus Exits After Continuation-Fund Transfer

The transaction is also notable as a liquidity event following McGill’s inclusion in Warburg Pincus’ first multi-asset continuation fund.

Warburg Pincus moved McGill into the $2.2 billion vehicle in December 2024. At the time, the broker had more than 550 employees across 11 offices on three continents. The continuation structure provided additional capital and time for value creation rather than requiring Warburg to exit the investment through a conventional sale.

Less than two years later, the sale to EQT provides a third-party exit from that ownership period.

The structure illustrates how continuation vehicles are increasingly becoming an intermediate stage in private equity ownership rather than necessarily the final destination for an asset. Sponsors can transfer companies from older funds into new vehicles, provide liquidity to existing limited partners and continue holding businesses before pursuing a later strategic or sponsor-backed sale.

PE NEWSWIRE has examined the broader expansion of alternative liquidity structures in its coverage of structured private equity fund-stake transactions, as managers and institutional investors seek additional ways to generate distributions from mature private-market portfolios.

Warburg’s full exit from McGill provides another example of how assets held through continuation structures can eventually return to the conventional sponsor-to-sponsor market.

Private Equity Keeps Targeting Insurance Distribution

McGill also fits a broader private equity investment theme in insurance distribution.

Insurance brokers typically earn commissions and fees for arranging coverage rather than assuming underwriting risk on their own balance sheets. That can produce recurring revenue with lower regulatory capital requirements than an insurance carrier, while fragmented markets can create opportunities for consolidation and geographic expansion.

Large private capital firms have consequently remained active buyers of brokerage and insurance-services businesses.

The attraction is especially pronounced in specialty insurance, where complex risks require expertise and access to specialized underwriting capacity. McGill works with sophisticated insurance and reinsurance clients and positions technology, data and specialist talent as central elements of its model.

The company’s digital infrastructure is a specific part of EQT’s investment thesis.

McGill says it operates on a unified technology architecture built around structured data and integration rather than multiple legacy systems inherited through acquisitions. The company says that infrastructure enables it to deploy analytics and artificial intelligence tools more rapidly.

That matters because technology could increasingly influence both margins and competitive positioning across insurance distribution. Automation can potentially reduce administrative workloads, while data tools can improve risk analysis, placement and client servicing.

At the same time, AI introduces a longer-term competitive question for brokerage businesses if technology automates parts of the intermediary function. For specialty brokers dealing with complex corporate risks, however, relationship-driven advice and market expertise remain harder to replicate than standardized insurance distribution.

EQT X Moves Closer to Full Deployment

The McGill acquisition also represents another substantial commitment from EQT X.

EQT manages €341 billion in total assets and €186 billion in fee-generating assets across Private Capital, Infrastructure, Real Assets and Secondaries as of June 30, according to the firm.

The manager has simultaneously been expanding beyond traditional buyouts. PE NEWSWIRE recently covered CPP Investments’ US$1.75 billion commitment to an EQT-led AI data center expansion, highlighting the firm’s ability to deploy capital across private equity and infrastructure strategies.

For McGill, the next phase will depend on whether EQT can translate the broker’s existing organic growth into a larger global platform without undermining the employee ownership and entrepreneurial model that helped build the company.

The $2 billion entry valuation raises the threshold for that value creation. If the reported $100 million of projected 2026 EBITDA is achieved, EQT is entering at approximately 20 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.

That makes recruitment, U.S. expansion, technology investment and sustained organic revenue growth central to the eventual return profile.

For Warburg Pincus, the transaction closes a seven-year investment that began when McGill and Partners was effectively a start-up and ends with the company valued at $2 billion. For EQT, it is a bet that the same combination of specialist talent, employee ownership and technology can support the broker’s next stage of international expansion.