Steadfast Group taken private by an Amwins, Dragoneer, and KKR consortium in a A$7.7bn deal

On 21 August 2026, Steadfast Group Ltd entered a binding agreement to be acquired by a consortium of US wholesale insurance distributor Amwins Groyp, San Francisco investment firm Dragoneer Investment Group, and global private equity firm KKR, at A$6.00 cash per share, a deal valuing Steadfast at approximately A$7.7bn.

Steadfast Group is the largest general insurance broker network and the largest group of insurance underwriting agencies in Australasia. It owns a mix of its own agencies and underwriting businesses while also supplying buying power, technology, and exclusive products to a network of 414 partially owned and independent insurance brokerages across Australia and New Zealand. Amwins Group is one of the largest wholesale, specialty insurance distribution platforms in the Unites States. Dragoneer is a US investment firm, and KKR is one of the world's largest alternative asset managers.

The deal is structured as a scheme of arrangement. Here this means an Australian court-supervised process, broadly equivalent to the UK mechanism of the same name, under which all shareholders vote as a single class. If enough of them approve the deal, it binds every shareholder, including those who voted against it. Steadfast shareholders need to approve the scheme, typically requiring 75% approval by vale and a majority in number of those voting, followed by Australian Federal Court approval and customary regulatory clearances. Notably, the consortium has structured the deal so the target is split after completion. Starboard BidCo, backed by Dragoneer and KKR, will retain Steadfast's broking network operations, while Amwins Australasia separately acquires the underwriting agency business.

J.P. Morgan and Citigroup are acting as joint financial advisers to Steadfast. There are no details as of yet on the consortium's debt financing structure or lenders. Mallesons is the confirmed legal adviser to Steadfast, while Ashurst Perkins Cole is the legal adviser to Amwins.

This is one of the largest take-privates of an ASX-listed (the ASX, or Australian Securities Exchange, is Australia's primary securities and stock exchange group financial services) company in recent memory, and a further sign of US private equity and strategic-buyer appetite for Australian insurance distribution. KKR has been active in the sector before, including, notably, its 2017 A$675m acquisition of non-bank lender Pepper Group. The structuring choice of carving the target's businesses up between different consortium members rather than one buyer taking the whole company is an example of how a bidding consortium can be assembled around complementary strategic interests.