High Street Insurance Partners, a Traverse City-based full-service insurance brokerage and a portfolio company of Detroit’s Huron Capital, a lower middle-market private equity platform, has been acquired by Abry Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
High Street management and agency partners will maintain large stakes in the company, and Huron Capital will maintain a minority interest.
“We have been extremely proud to support the HSIP management team over the last several years and have been wowed as the team achieved a five-year plan in half that time,” says Brian Rassel, partner at Huron who led High Street. “Looking forward, the whole team at Huron knew that HSIP could benefit from a larger partner with deep industry experience.”
Founded in 2018, High Street provides business insurance and risk management, employee benefits and human capital management, financial and retirement services, and personal insurance solutions.
“We have rapidly grown the company and successfully integrated 24 community-focused agencies since forming HSIP two and a half years ago,” says Scott Wick, founder and CEO of High Street. “… Abry will bring additional resources and valuable industry expertise as we continue to pursue add-on acquisitions as part of our strategy to accelerate growth.
“We thank Huron for our collaboration over the past three years and look forward to our new partnership with the Abry team, whose financial support and experience building businesses in the insurance sector will be instrumental as we continue to grow our business.”
With its investment in High Street, Abry continues to develop its focus on investing in insurance services businesses. Other current or previous insurance investments include specialist insurer ERS; Hilb, a property and casualty insurance and employee benefits broker serving small to medium sized business; Acrisure, a property and casualty insurance and employee benefits brokerage; and NSM Group, a property and casualty managing general agency.
“We are deeply imbedded in the insurance sector and have evaluated numerous platforms, ultimately identifying High Street as a best-in-class operator that has distinguished itself with its experienced and innovative team and its targeted focus on partnering with dynamic growth-oriented agency partners,” says Brent Stone, partner at Abry.
High Street employs more than 500 insurance coverage specialists and consultants in offices in Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.
Huron Capital was founded in 1999 and has since established six private equity funds aggregating nearly $2 billion in committed capital and invested in more than 200 companies. Its portfolio companies have employed more than 11,000 people across North America.
Abry was founded in 1989 and has completed more than $82 billion of leveraged transactions and other private equity or preferred equity placements. It manages more than $5 billion of capital across its active funds.
