- Littlenlarge.com brings specialist buildings insurance capabilities and will sit alongside The Insurance Octopus
- Axis for Business energy customers to join Verastar’s leading kinex brand
Verastar, the leading provider of essential services to small businesses, is pleased to announce the acquisition of Littlenlarge.com, the commercial property insurance broker specialising in buy-to-let and investment property portfolios. Verastar’s suite of leading B2B brands provide over 10% of the UK’s small businesses with essential services from electricity, gas, and water, to fixed and mobile telecommunications, broadband and fibre connectivity, payment processing and insurance.
Verastar first started providing insurance to its customers with the acquisition of The Insurance Octopus in 2016, and offers a range of solutions for small businesses from business interruption insurance to liability cover. Littlenlarge.com now compliments the offer with its specialism in providing landlord and buildings cover, and brings the total number of insurance customers to over 30,000.
Separately, the Company has also recently taken on the electricity and gas customers of Axis for Business, serving them through the trusted kinex brand. Founded in 2001, Axis for Business is well-established in the SME business space, and brings the group additional scale. This will help the Group meet the growing demand from small businesses to receive their essential services from a single provider at competitive prices. Throughout the pandemic, customer service teams across all Verastar’s brands have been providing customers with additional support and regular information to help them return to their premises and continue running their businesses.
With a dedicated in-house M&A team and strong financial position, Verastar is well-poised to make further acquisitions in the near future, with the aim to grow across the core areas of telecoms, energy, water, payment processing and insurance.
Terms of the transactions were not disclosed.
Robert Hornby, Verastar’s Strategy and M&A Executive said:
“It’s fantastic to complete these two strategic deals during such an uncertain year. Littlenlarge.com has a leading position in landlord insurance and is the perfect fit for us. We also extend a warm welcome to our new energy customers from Axis for Business. They will continue to receive their electricity and gas at the same competitive prices, and will also benefit from the customer service and broader product range available to them from kinex.”
Piotr Nowosad, Group Strategy Director at Verastar, added:
“Thanks to our strong financial position and nimble in-house M&A team we were able to move quickly to complete these deals and combine them with our existing insurance and energy businesses. Our strategy of providing all the essential services that SMEs need continues save them both time and money as they concentrate their efforts on running their businesses. To increase our scale and broaden our offering we will be acquiring a range of businesses, customer books and services as we continue to grow across the core areas of telecoms, energy, water, payment processing and insurance.”
