Background

McLarens is an independent claims adjusting firm that works with insurance carriers, brokers, and insureds to adjudicate large, complex commercial property and casualty insurance claims. As an entirely employee-owned business at the time, McLarens needed a capital partner they could trust and who had the capabilities to collaborate with them on institutionalizing and growing the business.

The Altamont team had a preexisting, multi-year relationship with McLarens, in particular with CEO Vern Chalfant, dating back to interaction in a prior sale process. The formal partnership was ultimately forged in September 2011, providing McLarens with capital to consummate two highly strategic add-on acquisitions. We focused our value creation plan on recruiting and supporting high-quality and talented adjusters and leveraging the firm’s strong employee-ownership model to drive aligned incentives.

Vision

Our long-standing connection with McLarens allowed us to collaboratively sharpen what had already made the company a preeminent player in their segment of the market.

• Establish Institutionalization. Given the company’s broad footprint, McLarens was, at the time of investment, more of a confederation of offices than an institutionalized business. We worked with management to install best practices in a people-driven business and to overhaul the core IT and claims management systems to improve data quality and adjuster productivity.
• Accelerate Sales and M&A Opportunities. To help scale the business, we installed a dedicated sales team to drive business development and free up key adjusters to focus on what they do best. We also worked to add new key capabilities and geographies to McLarens’ footprint.
• Expand Capability Set. By purchasing Airclaims (now McLarens Aviation), a market-leading aviation claims adjusting firm, and Washington-Oregon Claim Services (now Norcross), a middle-market firm serving the Northwest U.S., we expanded its capability set to better serve customers.

Results

Altamont exited McLarens in 2018 after a successful seven-year partnership. Through our shared mission, vision, and values with McLarens leadership, we helped grow both revenue and EBITDA by roughly 70% during our hold period. We also experienced significant EBITDA multiple accretion at exit due to the improved systems and processes implemented into the company as part of our shared value creation plan.

Altamont also helped McLarens successfully complete four add-on acquisitions, rebrand the business, and further position it for future growth opportunities.