Kate Sharry sells Auburn consulting business to Illinois firm
Kate Sharry
Group Benefits Strategies, a business consulting firm in Auburn, has been bought by an Illinois insurance brokerage, risk management and consulting company.
The longtime Central Massachusetts company will maintain its local offices under the oversight of the Northeast regional operations of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., a publicly traded company that announced the deal this month. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Group Benefits Strategies helps businesses and municipalities with employee health insurance, benefits, audits and claims. It is the Massachusetts' largest municipal health insurance consultant, according to Kate Sharry, who had been the president of Group Benefits Strategies. Sharry first joined Group Benefits Strategies in 1994, a year after its founding, and bought the company from her father, Jack, in 2012.
The company develops group benefit plans for clients ranging in size from 100 to 10,000 employees. Though it is small with just 10 employees, it counts more than 200 municipal entities, including cities, towns and school districts, among its clients.
Sharry wrote to clients to let them know of the sale and to assure them Group Benefits Strategies will continue with the same leadership and staff as its had, just as an independent branch under Gallagher. The name will change to Gallagher at some point in the next few months.
"You should not anticipate changes in the people you have relied on to serve you over the years," she wrote. "We are not going anywhere!"
Gallagher, which started in 1927, has grown rapidly in recent years through acquisitions. The company said it had nearly 300 acquisitions from 2010 to 2016, and it has grown internationally. By 2016, one-third of its brokerage revenues and 15 percent of its risk management revenues took place outside the United States, according to the company.
Gallagher has more than 25,000 employees and last year reported nearly $6.2 billion in revenue.
Sharry said her father once thought about selling to Gallagher but that the timing was right this time. She flew to Chicago earlier this year to meet with Gallagher Chairman Jim Durkin and got a warm feeling from those she met.
"Sometimes you have to go with your gut on things," Sharry said. "It was an emotional decision. It was difficult. I really looked at it from every angle."
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