BRO growth via buyouts

Brown & Brown said its 2025 revenue rose 22.8% to $5.9 billion after a year defined by acquisitions, not fast internal sales growth. (bbrown.com) The Daytona Beach, Florida, insurance broker reported organic revenue growth of 2.8% for the full year, while total revenue increased by $1.1 billion from 2024. In the fourth quarter alone, revenue jumped 35.7% to $1.6 billion even as organic revenue fell 2.8%. (bbrown.com) Brown & Brown completed 43 acquisitions in 2025, according to its earnings update and follow-on coverage of the results. Those deals added nearly $1.8 billion in annual revenue, with the largest contribution coming from Accession Risk Management Group. (bbrown.com) (zacks.com) Accession was not a small tuck-in deal. Brown & Brown agreed in June 2025 to buy RSC Topco, the parent of Accession, for a gross purchase price of $9.825 billion, then closed the transaction on August 1, 2025. (bbrown.com 1) (bbrown.com 2) At signing, Brown & Brown said Accession had about $1.7 billion in 2024 pro forma adjusted revenue and more than 5,000 insurance professionals across the United States and Canada. Accession is the parent of Risk Strategies and One80 Intermediaries, which expanded Brown & Brown’s reach in specialty brokerage, wholesale distribution, and program management. (bbrown.com) The mix of growth shows what changed in 2025: Brown & Brown got bigger much faster through deals than through selling more to existing customers. Chief executive officer J. Powell Brown said the year was “highlighted by the acquisition of Accession” alongside revenue growth and adjusted earnings expansion. (bbrown.com) Profit growth did not match revenue growth. Full-year income before income taxes rose 5.2% to $1.4 billion, and that margin narrowed to 23.2% from 27.1% in 2024, while adjusted EBITDAC margin improved to 35.9% from 35.2%. (bbrown.com) Brown & Brown has used acquisitions for years, but 2025 was unusually large even by its standards. Zacks said the company had acquired 717 insurance intermediary businesses from 1993 through the end of 2025, making last year’s 43-deal pace part of a much longer consolidation strategy. (zacks.com) The latest results leave Brown & Brown looking larger, more leveraged to acquired revenue, and more tied to how smoothly it can absorb Accession. The company’s 2025 numbers showed the buyout strategy working on size, while the slower organic growth rate showed where investors will keep looking next. (bbrown.com) (zacks.com)