BROKER MERGES WITH OREGON AGENCY

Rough Notes, Jul 2005

Beecher Carlson (www.beechercarlson.com), a privately owned insurance brokerage, captive manager and risk management firm with offices in eight U.S. cities and Bermuda, will merge with JBL&K of Portland, Oregon (www.jblk.com). JBL&K has more than $15 million in revenue, 25% of which comes from employee benefits. It was featured as the Rough Notes Agency of the Month in December 2004.

Last August, Beecher Carlson received a private equity infusion of $88.5 million, which it said was to be used "to acquire specialty commercial insurance brokers, captive managers and attract top flight talent from both within and outside the insurance industry." The JBL&K merger involves a combination of cash and Beecher Carlson stock.

The merger provides Beecher Carlson with an entree to the employee benefits market, as well as a presence in the Pacific Northwest. Beecher Carlson is based in Atlanta and also has offices in Boston, Vermont, Denver, Hawaii, California, Tennessee, New York, New Jersey and Bermuda. "We will continue to build our company by expanding our national footprint and international capabilities," said Beecher Carlson CEO Tom Golub.

Beecher Carlson was formed in 1981 to serve Fortune 1000 companies. It was sold to American Re in 1989, and then in 2003 was purchased by a group of management and employees. Today its client list includes six of the world's leading automobile manufacturers and five of the top ten hospitality companies.

Before joining Beecher Carlson, Golub served as CEO of Atlanta-based Hobbs Group, LLC, a specialty provider of risk management and insurance brokerage services that grew to $100 million in revenue before being acquired by HRH in July 2002.

JBL&K Risk Services, the oldest and largest independently owned risk management agency in Oregon, has 90 employees and maintains offices in Portland and Medford. "There is complete alignment between our business philosophy and that of Beecher Carlson," said Chuck Floberg, chairman of the board of JBL&K.

Bill Mooney, manager of JBL&K's property and casualty division, added, "Joining forces with Beecher Carlson provides JBL&K the opportunity that we have sought to expand our business regionally and nationally."

Other deals involving retail property/casualty agencies include:

BancorpSouth (www.bancorpsouth.com) acquires Kyzar & Co., P.A., of Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

Kyzar & Co., an employee benefits broker, will be integrated into one of BancorpSouth's property/casualty agency subsidiaries, Stewart Sneed Hewes, which has six offices throughout Mississippi.

BancorpSouth Chairman and CEO Aubrey Patterson said, "We have actively expanded our insurance services through the company's six-state market area and will consider other similar acquisitions of market-leading agencies. Kyzar and Company will add an important dimension to our employee benefits program in Steward Sneed Hewes' Hattiesburg office."

Other P-C agencies owned by BancorpSouth-in addition to Stewart Sneed Hewes-are Wright & Percy Insurance Agency in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and RKF&L in Little Rock, Arkansas. The bank's 2004 insurance revenue ranked in the top 25 nationally among banking operations.

BancorpSouth operates approximately 247 commercial banking, insurance, trust and broker/dealer locations in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas.

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (www.ajg.com) acquires Chris Schroeder Insurance, Inc., of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Chris Schroeder Insurance, Inc., is a 117-year-old broker specializing in insurance products for religious, institutional, nonprofit and higher educational businesses. Daniel Johnson, John Aghbashian and their staff will continue to operate from their current Milwaukee location under the direction of Thomas J. Gallagher, Midwest regional manager of Gallagher's Brokerage Services Division - Retail.

J. Patrick Gallagher, Jr., Gallagher's president and chief executive officer, said Schroeder "is a great cultural fit to our Milwaukee operations, and their specializations help to expand our higher education, religious and nonprofit niche strategy."

ABD Insurance & Financial Services, the insurance brokerage subsidiary of Greater Bay Bancorp (www.gbbk.com), will acquire Lucini/Parish Insurance, Inc., of Reno, Nevada.

Lucini/Parish, which traces its roots to 1927, has 135 employees located in seven cities in Nevada and California. Its 2004 revenue was approximately $21 million. Lucini/Parish's specialties include construction, medical malpractice, HOAs, jewelers and other middle market niches.

Nick Rossi, CEO of Lucini, described the transaction as "an operational leap forward that would have taken us years to accomplish on our own."

Frederick J. de Grosz, president and chief executive officer of ABD, said the acquisition "is consistent with our strategic goal of disciplined expansion of ABD's business into key West Coast regional markets.

"Upon the closing of the acquisition," de Grosz added, "Lucini's clients will have immediate access to ABD's extensive employee and executive benefits consulting and retirement plan services. In addition, we believe current and prospective clients will receive considerable value from ABD's highly regarded D&O consulting and enterprise risk management capabilities, as well as CyberSure, ABD's award-winning client services Web site."